Is this level of GOP hate/lies/smears the norm, or is this the worst campaign ever?

[Jackeens]

Be patient with me, I'm the outsider looking in!

Would really be interested in knowing if, in your experience, this is the worst election ever, in terms of GOP hate/lies/smears, or is this how it usually is?

I can remember the bile against (for example) Dukakis, Kerry and, of course, Clinton, but has it, in your opinion, reached new depths this time around?

Stupidly (I know) I look at Free Republic sometimes and I'm just astounded by the ignorance, racism, venom and hate (eg the current viciousness about Obama's grandmother).

Have they upped the hate, smears and lies simply because Obama is African-American, because they think they're going to lose - or is it always this way? It's mind-blowing.

Thanks.

[babylonsister]

1. I've read it is, primarily because the attacks are coming from the

campaign itself and not 527's.

[Rocknrule]

2. It's worse, because our guy is black and has a "foreign" sounding name

[WeDidIt]

3. 2008 makes 2004 look like a game of candyland

The difference between 2008 and 2004 is it ain't workin; this time.

[RollWithIt]

4. Honestly, worst campaign ever.... complete disorganized

Which is odd, because the Republicans are known for running extremely well organized campaigns. This is just beyond the pale.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. Worst of the TV era by a lot

[ladjf]

6. The worst by far of any campaign I've ever followed. nt

[Kingofalldems]

7. It's worse because they're behind

[paparush]

8. Its worse because Obama's lead may be too large to steal.

[mmonk]

9. Yes.

[underpants]

10. They've lost control of their hierarchy

The hierarchy is

talk radio
Drudge--Politico
Fox News
MSM

They jumped from talk radio (Palin) straight to campaign rallies. McCain HAD to say what he did in debate 3 or he couldn't go back out there (not that they would physically attack him but it would have been a horrific visual)

The Minutemen did what no one expected-actually take action. They don't march, they are never encouraged to contact their Reps or volunteer, the hierarchy will provide all they need to know....but now the masses are driving the process. They have lost control. The masses want to hear what they hear on their car radios.

[Geek_Girl]

11. Worst in my opinion

The race bating is something new and the fact that is coming directly from the McCain campaign quite frankly makes them look a bunch of KKK sheet wearing looneys.

If I was running this campaign and I was an evil repug I would not have had my candidates up there on the stump looking like a bunch of god awful race baiting loony toons. I would have my swift boaters and 527's doing the dirty work.

Cheney wasn't even this bad campaigning, he seems like a compassionate warm hearted person compared to Pallin and McCain.

Everyone know in the GE you move to the middle and are suppose to come across as a moderate (Compassionate Conservative) in order to win over the independents. Thats politics 101.

[Top Cat]

12. This has to be the worst........

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. This is definitely the worst

They are completely unhinged.

It is the first in the Rove era of conservatism where they are actually losing by a lot and clearly going to lose. They're freaking out because everything they know how to do is failing miserably.

[progressiveforever]

14. Clinton survived a rough 92 election

That was the worst I had seen up to that point. Obama has had more totally baseless attacks.

[TACstrat]

15. It's typical. Remember what they did to Max Cleland? - nt

[AlCzervik]

16. You need to understand that the gop is losing it's grasp on power that they've held for a long time

and their collective backs are against the wall or cornered rats if you like so they'll do or say anything to keep the power in at least one branch.

[bluedawg12]

17. Yes and it will linger- the pukinoid's will be NUMA's

national unity my @ss, long after mclame and wolf killer leaves the stage.

mcpathetic's legacy will be the open divisness he nurtured by bringing this low life woman onto the public stage.

All of these reichstag rally redfang's were thinking: finally someone to represent "ME!"

"Me, hateful me." They will linger as NUMA's for another generation, sad, very sad.

dumbya left a nearly broken nation and this patehtic old man will leave a broken national psyche for about 28% of the people - he and pukin exhorted them, begged them, to hate a guy who was a million more times qualified and egged them on to openly hate him.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

18. This is the worst I've seen by far. MUCH worse than 2004.

Take normal Republican obnoxious douchebaggery. Add 8 years of Bush "with us or against us" fascist seasoning. And then a black Democratic candidate for extra racial goodness, and you have this year.

What kills me is that McCain and his people apparently never even entertained the slightest thought of promoting a positive message, they had no confidence in their ability to win on that. So we have this redneck shit stew.

[HughMoran]

19. This is a filthy rotten campaign being run by the Republicans

I've never been so angry in my life - talk about keeping Dems highly motivated (one of the negative consequences of negative campaigning).

[Doctor_J]

20. It's worse because the "mainstrem" media have joined in vigorously

I don't remember slime like Cokie Roberts and David Gregory being so vile and partisan previously. But my memory isn't what it used to be

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

21. It's the worst I can remember

and there have been some doozies. A number of factors have converged to make this election season something "special," though:

1. We have a unique candidate. Barack Obama is highly intelligent, thoughtful and composed. So were Dukakis, Gore and Kerry. But, Obama is also that rarest of creatures, a political leader who inspires people, lifts them up and is as much a movement leader as a presidential candidate. We haven't had anyone like him since RFK was killed. I genuinely liked and fully supported Duke, Gore and Kerry, but I wouldn't have walked two miles through the snow to vote for them. I would for Obama. Obama successfully speaks to the broadest audience of any Democrat I've seen since 1968.

2. Because of his unique gifts, Obama is able to inspire his supporters to passion, rather than mere support. Evidence of this is most convincingly provided by the unassailable fact that the man can literally snap his fingers and make tens of millions of dollars fall from the sky. As Eleanor Clift observed in Newsweek, Obama's fund-raising success is the American people screaming "ENOUGH!!"

3. The Pukes were so arrogant and fascistic in the last eight years that they have much to hide. There are a dozen cemeteries worth of skeletons out there that would, if exposed in toto, sink the party for at least thirty years as anything other than a regional force. The pukes are terrified of the notion of a President Obama for that reason.

4. Our standard bearer is literally an African-American. The full-mooner, foaming at the mouth fundy Repuke base is deeply, irredeemably racist. Given the sorry state of race relations in this nation, white trash's only claim to being better than brown people of all kinds is their whiteness. With a black man (and such an intelligent and educated black man) in the White House, white trash, racists, Freepers and the rest of the intelligence underclass (as opposed to the economic underclass) will have to confront the hard reality of their own situation. Their cognitive dissonance will be taken off their psyches like bark off a tree. They do not want to face their real selves and that is a core fear of this portion of the electorate.

The educated economic elites that identify as Repug couldn't give less of a shit whether a candidate is blue, purple, black or Vulcan. That is why the conservative "intelligentsia" is throwing McCain under the train. Admit it to themselves or not, the Powells, Brookses, Wills, Buckleys, et al., have finally seen the underbelly of hatred, paranoia and sociopathy in their party's base and they are scared to death by seeing it up close.

The kooks are not only out of the attic, they are in the middle of the living room shrieking their kookery, and they are firmly in control of the Repig party and it has spooked the establishment conservatives big time. Which is why the Reagan coalition is already in its coffin, just waiting for burial. No common interests unite these people.

5. The Repigs are completely out of ideas. They are as bankrupt as we were at the end of the 1970s. Which is why this will be a transformative election. The majority of the populace has come to what I refer to as the "Popeye point"; They've had all they can stands, and they can't stands no more. This is a "throw the bums out" election. And the party that brought us to this crisis point is the Republican party. The recriminations, bloodletting and fratricidal warfare on the right for the next 2-10 years should be most entertaining to watch. Unlike Democrats, they are unable to sit down, talk it through and try to figure out what will work. No Repig president will be elected until they find their Bill Clinton - nominally of the party but other-side lite. But the fissures between the neocons, theocons and economic royalists are now far to large to paper over. They barely won elections with that coalition. They stand no chance splintered.

[psychopomp]

25. Well thought-out

Deserves its own OP in General Discussion: Presidential. I like your style. :thumbsup:

[Waiting For Everyman]

22. It has always been the same thing from them.

It's always lies, hate, and what they call "dirty tricks" (Watergate type of activities, usually illegal), along with vote stealing and caging. It changed in the 1980s with the rise of the Religious Right (which is another vote caging scheme in itself)... that brought in the confrontational aggressive style of speaking in public, and hate talk-shows etc.

But Nixon was just as bad, and there was an attempt to overthrow FDR.

The RW ultra-rich don't have the numbers of votes to win, so they have to resort to propaganda and their antics to either con people into voting for them, or outright steal their votes.

I'll say this though... this is the LAMEST Repub campaign, ever!

[pirate_satellite]

23. They're always the worst ever

That's how it seems at the time. (Thinking of the way they mocked Kerry's Purple Hearts, for example). Honestly, though, I think the Republicans have never looked as bad as they do this time. Partly that's because Palin has whipped up a fervor among the worst of the worst on the right, and partly it's because with the advent of YouTube and cheap, small video cameras, we're capturing for posterity more of the ugliness that's always been there.

[TheKentuckian]

24. I have to agree with the most lame ever

I think it is the ineptitude that is running off the Republiscum braintrust. They've always run on filth, lies, distortion, and fear mongering but an actual minority candidate, especially one that keeps the triangulating to a minimum just has created such a tremendous target that they can't keep from making it ugly as sin. Their intelligentsia never wavered until they came to the point of just being disorganized schmucks supported by a mob.

They wanted the people to be dumb enough to believe their crap but I don't think they expected them to just devolve into rabid cattle. The rank and file Phailin worshiper is so stupid that they are just as dangerous as someone who sees through the lies because of their living in a different reality and Frankenstein monster like logic.

[Frank Cannon]

26. McCain is running the worst, most bizarre campaign in American history

They will be talking about this campaign fifty years from now.

[Fire1]

27. This is no surprise to minorities. These freaks have been there

all along, under the radar.

[stillcool]

28. When was the last time..

a republican won an election based on issues? Senator Obama gives them more fodder because of his name, and his skin color, but any other Democrat would have been put through the ringer as well. Pretty amazing we are where we are at this point.

[Genevieve]

29. the worst. n.t

[political_Dem]

30. As I've written in another thread, this is probably the most bizarre election I've ever seen.

I've never seen two candidates act in this fashion such as Palin and McCain. They act so entitled that they believe that the public can be fooled by anything that they do.

I just thank goodness that some of us are BS detectors and can see through what they're trying to sell.