Republicans rolling out attack ads aimed at Obama, supporters

[suedanim]

Who is Floyd Brown? And why does he show up decades after Willie Horton to produce ads which push racially motivated hot buttons?

Obama can defend himself against these cheap shot ads. But, why IS our political system so riddled with the worst sort of vicious dirt being slung? Are Americans so easily manipulated in 2008? I hope not.



Conservatives rolling out attack ads aimed at Obama, supporters (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Conservatives_rolling_out_attack_ads_aimed_0423.ht ml)Nick Juliano
Published: Wednesday April 23, 2008

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20080423/i/r3250276770.jpg?x=252&y=345&sig=xZx6vEcEXAxLTIYi1nnxfw--

Willie Horton ad creator takes credit for Clinton win in PA, unveils new attack aimed at Obama, Clinton

Two vicious attack ads aimed at Sen. Barack Obama and his supporters have emerged in as many days, previewing what could become the most brutal onslaught from the GOP and its allies in modern history. A third spot that appeared Tuesday attacked Obama and his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

The North Carolina Republican Party unveiled an ad Tuesday that invokes the most incendiary comments from Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to attack two Democratic candidates for governor who have endorsed Obama for president. North Carolina holds its primary in two weeks.

Also on Tuesday, Floyd Brown, the conservative ad-man who created the infamous Willie Horton ads in 1988, unveiled an ad accusing Obama and Clinton of wanting to raise taxes and it targeted Obama for supporting drivers licenses for undocumented immigrants

That spot came a day after Brown unveiled his first attack ad, which seemed to try to blame Obama for several gang-related murders in Chicago after he had voted against a proposal to impose the death penalty for gang related crimes. The ad quoted an editoral describing the murders as "urban terrorism" before displaying a picture of Ground Zero and questioning Obama's toughness in the war on terror. The narrator says the editorial demanded action on gang violence, but it was written more than three months after the bill it references, which was vetoed by the Illinois governor.

Obama's campaign released this fact check discounting the ad's contentions.
A press release announcing Brown's newest ad credited his first effort with delivering Pennsylvania to Clinton in Tuesday's primary, saying 7 million copies were distributed to political activists. As of noon Wednesday, the ad had been viewed just 25,000 times on YouTube.

Time magazine called (http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1733873,00.html) the links the ad tries to portray "indirect and tenuous," and the Obama camp panned it as "garbage" that represents "everything the American people hate about politics."

Brown also said he would run his ads in North Carolina.

The state GOP's ad was the first televised effort to bring up Rev. Wright's comments, although right-wing ad makers have been salivating (http://rawstory.com/news/2008/GOP_ad_makers_salivate_at_potential_0319.html) at the opportunity to exploit his statements since they first emerged last month.
The Republican National Committee and Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, both quickly denounced (http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/04/mccain_campaign_and_rnc_disavo.html) the North Carolina party's efforts.
On a landing strip near Inez, Ky., RNC Chairman Mike Duncan said he put in a call this morning to the chairwoman of the North Carolina Republican Party. "I left a voicemail encouraging her not to run the ad," he said. Katie Wright, an RNC spokeswoman, elaborated, saying the national party first learned of the ad last night, and raised objections at a staff level. "We didn't see it as helpful or appropriate. But they are an independent organization," she said of the North Carolina state party.

A few minutes later, McCain weighed in himself. "We asked them not to run it. I am sending them an email as we speak asking them to take it down," McCain said. "There is no place for that kind of campaigning."
ABC reports (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/04/nc-republicans.html) the North Carolina party has "no real money behind the ad right now," but a YouTube version asks for donations and the party will decide soon how widely to run the ad.


The North Carolina Republican Party issued this attack spot Wednesday morning.

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This ad debuted Tuesday from Floyd Brown, creator of the infamous "Willie Horton" ad.


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Brown followed up with this spot Wednsday.

uK2bGaugs68

[micfranklin]

Well they are Republicans.....

[Truth_and_Power]

"no... please stop *cough*" -- John "The Maverick" McCain

[micfranklin]

Yeah I like how at the end they all say they're not sponsored by any candidate.

[4Reaganomics]

Slick Willie Horton

I remember him

[micfranklin]

If you mean slick as in cheap, then yeah he's as slick as spit.

[4Reaganomics]

http://forerunner.com/forerunner/X0158_Dukakis__Willie_Hort.html

Was he cheap? I just knew that he was a repulsive man that killed innocent people.

[Wndrtch]

http://forerunner.com/forerunner/X0158_Dukakis__Willie_Hort.html

Was he cheap? I just knew that he was a repulsive man that killed innocent people.

...who wouldn't have killed a couple, if he was in jail serving his time as sentanced. But, because we had a loney, bleeding heart Liberal, Mike Dukakis, he was let out for a weekend "vacation", and murdered two people. The Willie Horton ad was TRUTH, that Democrats didn't like, so it's labled as an "Attack Ad", but calling McCain "too old" is not :shame:.

This ad demonstrates that Obama is as soft on crime as Dukakis was, and if one is soft on common criminals, how is that person going to handle international terrorism and National Security? Democrats have been chosing candidates that feel more compassion for criminals than they do for average, law-biding citizens. Obama's "spritual adviser", "freind", and "confidant" certainly feels more compassion for the terrorist of 911 then the 3,000 dead as evident from his "chicken's have come home to roost..." "God Damn America..." speeches. Given that Obama chose to stay in that parish, after all the rascist speaches and even after the 911 filth, one must assume that he feels in a similar way, because anybody else would have left. And, if he feels that way, why would you ever want that in charge of National Defense and Security, the two most impoortant functions of the CiC.?

You Dems want average people to vote for your candidates, then go out and draft a Sam Nunn-like candidates. That guy had Harry Truman size balls, unlike the moth-balls on your current front-runner.

[DamnYankee]

Wasn't the Willie Horton ad first used by a liberal against another liberal, Michael Dukakis.

And a word on "attack ads." You liberals whine about attack ads only if it is against your liberal.

Personally, I say, bring on the attack ads, show me the dirt, sling mud, I love it. Let the American people decide what is mud, and what isn't.

[4Reaganomics]

I thought the Slick Willie issue was fair game.

I mean here we had a guy giving furloughs to prisoners serving life in prison so they could assimilate into society. It just so happened that one of them killed an innocent couple


Now if that doesn't say something about a candidates judgement and is off limits then it is a disgrace.

[suedanim]

Wndrtch....

I'm as liberal as they come and I am hardly soft on crime. I oppose the death penalty on moral grounds first and based on the fact that our justice system is warped in favor of those who can afford decent representation, racial profiling still dominates, unfair sentencing and biased jury selection, second. Opposition to the death penalty does NOT make you soft on crime. And willingness to kill people doesn't make you tough on crime.

Tough on crime would be demanding stringent adherence to the rule of law, demanding also fair charging, stopping racial profiling, practice fair prosecution, sentencing and for Gods sake put an end to the death penalty. It does NOT deter crime. It serves for revenge purposes only.... but MOSTLY its covert ethnic cleansing.

Get it straight..... tough guy...

Obama made a very wise, brave decision, given the fact that 13... men in Illinois, mostly black, were found innocent and released from death row just a few years ago. Its happened all over the nation.

You brag on Republicans being tough on warring and crime because you are so willing to kill, kill and kill some more.. How curious is it that you are the same damn people preaching about the sanctity of life and seek to deny women the right to even early term abortion, even abortion to save her life???

btw.. I am not pro-abortion, but I do support a womans right to choose up to the 8th to 10th week and thats a stretch for me. 'nother topic altogethor.

Illinois suspends death penalty (http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/01/31/illinois.executions.02/)

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/01/31/illinois.executions.02/story.illinois.execution.jpg
Governor calls for review of 'flawed' system

January 31, 2000

Web posted at: 10:33 p.m. EST (0333 GMT)

CHICAGO (http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/01/31/illinois.executions.02/illinois.chicago.lg.jpg) (CNN) -- Illinois Gov. George Ryan on Monday imposed a moratorium on the state's death penalty. All lethal injections will be postponed indefinitely pending an investigation into why more executions have been overturned than carried out since 1977, when Illinois reinstated capital punishment.

"We have now freed more people than we have put to death under our system -- 13 people have been exonerated and 12 have been put to death," Ryan told CNN. "There is a flaw in the system, without question, and it needs to be studied."

_________________________

Group urges end to Illinois death penalty (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-death-penalty-07mar07,1,1445445.story)
Flawed system called expensive, arbitrary


By Azam Ahmed | Tribune reporter March 7, 2008 Despite modest reforms introduced over the last several years, the Illinois death penalty system remains flawed, too expensive and arbitrarily implemented, says a new report from a state anti-death penalty group.

Thursday's report by the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty calls on Illinois lawmakers to follow the recent example of New Jersey (http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/us/new-jersey-PLGEO100100700000000.topic) and abolish the death penalty.

"Cook County continues to drain millions of dollars in resources to maintain between 150 to 175 capital cases annually, almost none of which end in death sentences," said Jane Bohman, executive director of the coalition.

More capital punishment defendants have been found not guilty in the last five years than have been sent to Death Row, Bohman said.

But the Cook County state's attorney's office, which prosecutes about 80 percent of the state's death penalty cases, said that arbitrary outcomes are the result of different judges and juries, not faulty screening.

"You can't get uniformity unless you get one jury to handle all death penalty cases," said spokesman John Gorman. "There is going to be disparity, but that applies to all manner of cases, armed robbery and any other felony."

The coalition says in its report that judges and juries are becoming increasingly unlikely to sentence defendants to the death penalty, making spending on capital cases a waste of money. As evidence, they cite data that shows an average of less than three death sentences a year in the last five years, compared with 14 to 16 per year in the mid-1990s.

"The 'return' on the state's investment in capital punishment in negligible, given the tiny number of death sentences returned each year," said Bohman.

The report also challenges Illinois lawmakers for not implementing the key reforms suggested by the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment, a group convened to help repair the capital punishment system.

Sean Collins-Stapleton, speaking on behalf of the Chicago Council of Lawyers, said that until all of the reforms were implemented, the state was still dealing with a "demonstrably broken system."

No one has been put to death in Illinois since 1999, the year before then-Gov. George Ryan (http://www.chicagotribune.com/topic/politics/government/george-ryan-PEPLT004510.topic) called for a moratorium on the death penalty.

Still, it's of little comfort to people like Darby Tillis. Tillis, 64, spent nine years in prison -- four of them on Illinois' Death Row -- before he was found not guilty in 1987 after his fifth trial on armed robbery and double murder charges.

[micfranklin]

Wasn't the Willie Horton ad first used by a liberal against another liberal, Michael Dukakis.

And a word on "attack ads." You liberals whine about attack ads only if it is against your liberal.

Personally, I say, bring on the attack ads, show me the dirt, sling mud, I love it. Let the American people decide what is mud, and what isn't.

I whine about attack ads because it's completely missing the point of the whole presidency race.

[4Reaganomics]

You can claim policy all day long and it is a good part of the campaign.

However, I tend to believe that if you were friendly with terrorists before you can be friendly with them as the leader of the free world.

That troubles me, and I do not want that in a President

[Elrathin]

However, I tend to believe that if you were friendly with terrorists before you can be friendly with them as the leader of the free world.

Why? You guys were fine with it for Bush and Saudi Arabia.

[micfranklin]

You can claim policy all day long and it is a good part of the campaign.

However, I tend to believe that if you were friendly with terrorists before you can be friendly with them as the leader of the free world.

That troubles me, and I do not want that in a President

Too bad Obama wasn't "friendly" with terrorists though.

[4Reaganomics]

Which personal friend of Bush's blew up the pentagon? or police headquarters? the capitol? Which one of his friends admitted to doing this? Which one of his friends wishes they would have done more to kill Americans?

[4Reaganomics]

Too bad Obama wasn't "friendly" with terrorists though.

well I guess his own campaign lies about him and Weather Underground member William Ayers

[Elrathin]

Which personal friend of Bush's blew up the pentagon? or police headquarters? the capitol? Which one of his friends admitted to doing this? Which one of his friends wishes they would have done more to kill Americans?

Which people were flown out after 9/11 when no other places could fly?

[4Reaganomics]

Innocent people who our administration thought would be killed due to profiling

the very profiling you claim to renounce

[Elrathin]

Innocent people who our administration thought would be killed due to profiling

the very profiling you claim to renounce

Yeah you can claim that all you want, I'm not buying that.

[4Reaganomics]

Here we go, conspiracy theorist thread starts here

help me now

[micfranklin]

well I guess his own campaign lies about him and Weather Underground member William Ayers

No, just some other crazy, uninformed people lying about him to push their own agenda as if anyone doesn't see through the bullshit.