negative campaigning

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McCain Launches Preemptive Strike on Hayworth

Campaign gets aggressive early against conservative challenger

(Newser) - John McCain is pulling no punches in an offensive against primary challenger JD Hayworth, whom he hopes to shut down before Hayworth's campaign even begins. McCain has rallied his troops to file complaints with the FEC about Hayworth’s radio program, which they allege he was using to campaign in...

Special Interests Pouring Cash Into Mass. Race

With health care on the line, spending could top $3M in final days

(Newser) - Attack ads are flying in the final week of the Massachusetts Senate race, many of them coming from outside special interest groups. The American Future Fund and US Chamber of Commerce have both spent sizable amounts on ads attacking Democrat Martha Coakley, while Americans for Responsible Health Care recently began...

Reid to 'Vaporize' GOP Challengers: Aide
 Reid to 'Vaporize' 
 GOP Challengers: Aide 
ELECTION 2010
Oct 20, 2009 1:25 PM CDT

Reid to 'Vaporize' GOP Challengers: Aide

Senate majority leader studying Corzine for cues to effective negative campaign

(Newser) - Harry Reid, his re-election campaign wilting in the polls, is getting ready to rumble: The Senate majority leader is promising an intensely negative campaign against the 2010 GOP challenger for his Senate seat. With his $8.7 million war chest—the largest ever for a Nevada statewide race—Reid will...

Obama Sneaks Power Back Into the Mix
Obama Sneaks Power Back
Into the Mix
analysis
Jan 30, 2009 1:01 PM CST

Obama Sneaks Power Back Into the Mix

Adviser who called Clinton 'monster' lands national security role

(Newser) - Barack Obama’s national security team seems to consist entirely of people known for speaking their minds, observes Ben Smith of Politico, and none moreso than new NSC staff member Samantha Power, best known for calling Hillary Clinton “a monster.” She was booted for the incident, but that...

Ouch! Rove Takes Shots at Obama Inner Circle

(Newser) - Take that, Joe Biden. And Rahm Emanuel. And you too, New York Times Magazine interviewer. In a recent chat, a testy Karl Rove says the VP-elect "has an odd combination of longevity and long-windedness that passes for wisdom in Washington." Asked if he engages in negative politics, the...

Kristol Used His Column to Help McCain's Rebels
Kristol Used His Column to Help McCain's Rebels
analysis
Nov 7, 2008 3:23 PM CST

Kristol Used His Column to Help McCain's Rebels

Pro-Palin camp fed columnist 'a constant stream of poison'

(Newser) - As Bill Kristol used his New York Times column to relentlessly praise Sarah Palin and simultaneously blast the McCain camp's handling of her, he was far from an objective observer, writes Scott Horton in the Daily Beast. Kristol regularly received inside information from the McCain team's pro-Palin contingent, then used...

Candidates Keep Punching
 Candidates Keep Punching 
Nov 3, 2008 3:11 AM CST

Candidates Keep Punching

McCain, Obama break with tradition and carry their negative campaigning into the election's final days

(Newser) - Both presidential candidates are bucking tradition and remaining on the offensive in the last days of the election—a time when campaigns usually back off and focus on positive messages, the Washington Post reports. Barack Obama is spinning Dick Cheney’s endorsement of John McCain as a troubling indication of...

Palin: Media Threatening My First Amendment Rights

Because it won't let me attack Obama without criticizing me

(Newser) - Sarah Palin seems to think the Constitution is supposed to protect her from criticism. On a conservative radio show, Palin said the media is unfairly attacking her for her shots at Obama on Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, and that if the media “convinces enough voters that that is...

Mac's Tactics Time-Tested ... But This Ain't the Time

'Tinny and trivial' attacks are too small, and in any case too late, in momentous election

(Newser) - Any day now, John McCain will mock John Kerry for flip-flopping. Or maybe go with George H.W.’s “Read my lips, no new taxes,” pledge, even Eisenhower’s “I shall go to Korea.” What he won’t do is offer anything new, because all...

Mac Should Muzzle Staffers, Drop Robocalls, Talk Security

Remind voters why they admired him: Kristol

(Newser) - William Kristol has some advice for John McCain: “When you’re in a hole, stop digging.” In a recent poll, 64% of respondents said they believe McCain spends more time attacking Barack Obama than making his own case. The senator ought to pull his negative ads, robocalls, and...

Swing Voters Don't Like 'Hothead' McCain

Crisis turns voters towards 'cool and collected' Obama

(Newser) - Doubts over John McCain's disposition are pushing undecided voters Barack Obama's way, according to the Los Angeles Times. Swing voters interviewed by the newspaper say McCain's negative body language over the last few weeks and his "hothead" outbursts have given them strong misgivings—as did his snap decision to...

McCain Had a '60s Radical Friend of His Own
McCain Had a '60s Radical Friend of His Own
OPINION
Oct 18, 2008 1:48 PM CDT

McCain Had a '60s Radical Friend of His Own

Made friends with ex-Vietnam protestor

(Newser) - John McCain has been busily exploiting and distorting Barack Obama’s passing relationship with '60s radical Bill Ayers, but McCain himself had a much closer relationship with another '60s radical, David Ifshin, writes Joe Klein of Time. Ifshin was an anti-Vietnam radical whom many people accused of treason after he...

Bill Ayers Is a Nice Guy
 Bill Ayers Is 
 a Nice Guy 
OPINION
Oct 15, 2008 9:37 AM CDT

Bill Ayers Is a Nice Guy

Republicans are waving the bloody shirt at a model citizen

(Newser) - In a desperate attempt to link Barack Obama to a 1960s culture war he’s too young to remember, John McCain has spent his last shred of political capital attacking Bill Ayers, Obama’s supposed terrorist pal. “I can personally attest to the idiocy of it all,” writes...

Joe McCain Slams Big Bro's Handlers
Joe McCain Slams Big Bro's Handlers
Oct 15, 2008 9:23 AM CDT

Joe McCain Slams Big Bro's Handlers

Let John McCain be John McCain, pleads letter

(Newser) - O brother, where art thou? Joe McCain's frustration with the direction of his older brother's campaign has erupted into an angry letter to strategists, reports the Baltimore Sun. The former journalist, who has been stumping for his brother in swing states, slammed the campaign's "counter-productive" strategy of too tightly...

Obama Lead Up to 14 Points Amid Mac Attacks: Poll

Poll finds Obama ahead 53% to 14% after McCain blows fail to land

(Newser) - John McCain's flurry of attacks against Barack Obama has done the Republican more harm than his opponent, according to the latest New York Times/CBS poll. Obama now commands a 53% to 39% lead, with voters seeing McCain as running the more negative campaign of the two, the poll found. More...

In Crisis, Ads Are Just Noise
 In Crisis, 
 Ads Are 
 Just Noise 
Analysis
Oct 14, 2008 2:01 PM CDT

In Crisis, Ads Are Just Noise

McCain attacks, Obama saturates, and no one cares

(Newser) - With the election weeks away, the airwaves are thick with campaign ads. McCain has gone almost completely negative, while Obama has used his huge war chest to unleash an unprecedented barrage of messages—and none of it matters, strategists tell the Washington Post. “Most people are looking at their...

Facing a Wipeout, McCain Tones It Down
 Facing a Wipeout, 
 McCain Tones 
 It Down 
ANALYSIS
Oct 14, 2008 11:07 AM CDT

Facing a Wipeout, McCain Tones It Down

GOP nominee reverts to 'happy warrior' of the primary

(Newser) - Down in the polls and facing brutal criticism from his own party, John McCain is returning to an old persona: the "happy warrior" that won the GOP primary. Tempering attacks that have proven counterproductive, McCain presented himself as a prepared, tested leader who could bring forceful leadership to...

'Dysfunctional' Campaign Must Go: Kristol
'Dysfunctional' Campaign Must Go: Kristol
OPINION
Oct 13, 2008 12:44 PM CDT

'Dysfunctional' Campaign Must Go: Kristol

Attacks haven't and won't work, so it's time to go back to basics

(Newser) - John McCain’s campaign isn’t working, and if he’s smart, he’ll “junk the whole thing and start over,” William Kristol writes in the New York Times. McCain’s current “combination of strategic incoherence and operational incompetence has become toxic,” the high-profile conservative argues....

Smears Could Cost McCain Fla.
 Smears Could 
 Cost McCain Fla. 
OPINION
Oct 12, 2008 1:04 PM CDT

Smears Could Cost McCain Fla.

Risky strategy imperils prez bid

(Newser) - The Sunshine State is looking cloudy for John McCain, whose risky moves could cost him Florida, just as Rudy Giuliani's posturing sank him in the primary, novelist Carl Hiaasen writes for the Miami Herald. Polls show McCain forfeiting his lead, and his running mate isn't helping. Sarah Palin, Hiaasen snipes,...

Furor Ignites After Ga. Rep. Blasts McCain

Civil rights icon Lewis backs off Wallace comparison, but not far

(Newser) - A day after igniting tensions in both campaigns, civil rights icon John Lewis sought to soften remarks that seemed to compare John McCain to segregationist George Wallace, Politico reports. “It was not my intention or desire to do so,” Lewis said last night. “My statement was a...

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