Who’s Getting Dirtier?

As the Presidential Race picks up and the claws come out, who is the candidate that is going to keep their hands clean? Which candidate is going to be taking, our already has taken, a dirt bath, and which one is going to come out smelling like Roses? Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama are using money, influence, celebrities, and voter savvy to gain the biggest prize in the United States, to become the leader of the free world, to be chosen as the President of the United States. This position demands responsibility, honor, respect and dignity (see how spin is used here), however, it looks like those are things that are going to have to wait until after the election process, or at least on McCain’s side. Most viewers of the television ads and the Fox News stories and the CNN blogs will choose to believe things that may be positive towards their particular candidate but As Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson state in their book, “Unspun-finding facts in a world of [disinfomation]”, “Avoiding spin and getting a solid grip on hard facts requires not only an open mind and a willingness to consider all the evidence, it requires us to have some basic skills in telling good evidence from bad, and to recognize that mere assertion is not fact and that not all facts are good evidence” (Unspun, 106). Senator Obama has chosen to fight McCain and his party’s slanderous attacks in various ways and each one of them is, and has been, much more respectable and clean than McCain’s tactics.

One of the ways that Senator Obama is cleanly fighting slander is by creating the websites www.stopthesmears.com and www.lowroadexpress.com. The load road express website’s homepage even uses a quote taken from the St. Pete Time’s Editorial which reads “The Straight Talk Express has taken a Nasty Turn into the Gutter” pertaining to recent actions taken by McCain’s campaign. The two website’s main focus is to shine a light and illuminate the ways postings on the Internet can spin information, true or not, and make it completely false or unreasonably biased with no fear of recourse or punishment especially since a person or group can usually stay completely anonymous. To counteract these negative Internet claims there are several ways that each individual person can help stop the rumor and smears. One of the ways to become involved is if there is first-hand knowledge of the rumor being false, a person could write on the websites why they know this to be false and how. Another way for the correct information to be posted to the website is to find supporting information about the inaccuracy of the claim through information posted on a respectable website or other media outlet such as books, magazines, and newspapers. However, “clearly finding facts in a world of disinformation requires something more than just relying on generally reliable websites, or generally reliable books, newspapers, or encyclopedias, or factual sources of any description, for that matter” (Unspun, 155) A couple ways to go about finding as close to the “truth” as possible is to “look for general agreement among expert, check for primary sources, know who’s talking, and cross-check everything that matters. (Unspun, 159,160,164,168) Notice than in setting up this avenue Obama has steered clear of pointing fingers but asks for help in keeping things “Unspun”.

There is probably no one better to fight for Obama, than Obama, and that’s exactly what he’s been doing. As Obama goes from town to town and country to country he usually will have to publicly and vocally counter one rumor or another and chooses to do so using candor and sometimes even humor, as he did at a rally in a small town in Missouri. During the rally Senator Obama poked fun at himself and McCain by saying that McCain would probably tell voters that Obama is “…not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name.' You know, 'He doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills. (W.S.J Campaign 08) One may ask whether or not Obama is using the “race card” in that statement, nonetheless he is the first black Presidential candidate the United States has ever elected and as much as some people may want to ignore that fact there is no doubt that race is a very important issue. “In a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll in July…the poll found 20% of black voters said race is the single most important factor in their vote, and another 14% said it was one of several important factors. These voters, like African-Americans overall, overwhelmingly support Sen. Obama” (W.S.J. Campaign 08). This information is useful for Obama to fight the smears because if an issue is important, as facts have shown that race is, than it’s best to bring the issue to the forefront and either fight the bias that comes with it, give truth to the uninformed or ignorant, or back up the positive with caring, compassion, humility, and respect as Obama is currently doing.

As mud is slung, mostly in Obama’s direction, McCain has had enough mud thrown in his direction to sully at least his big toe. In Obama’s more recent campaign ad he refers to “Same Old Politics” while a picture is being shown of McCain shaking hands and embracing our much-adored current leader, President Bush. On the other hand, Jackson and Jamieson warn that “we humans have a natural tendency to over generalize from vivid examples” (Unspun, 108), so just because one Republican made the worst decisions in our country’s history doesn’t necessarily mean that his successor will make the same so “Be Skeptical, but Not Cynical” (Unspun, 175). Just as playing the race card may be a negative on McCain it can also be a negative for Obama to use it too, which some respected media outlets have said he has done, “Barack Obama's repeated insertion of race into this presidential campaign is starkly at odds with the themes of change, hope and unity that lifted him to prominence on the American political scene. It is disturbing that any candidate in 2008 would play the race card” (Gazette) If Obama would like to sling dirt at McCain for using the “race card” than he should keep his own deck as close to him as possible.
McCain’s tactics to turn his actions around to make Obama look bad have been underhanded, ruthless, and he has definitely stepped off his “Straight Talk Express” bus. For McCain to even suggest that Obama is using his race as a leg-up would be “Transparency” on his part and if he would like to say that then he needs concrete evidence to back it up because, “Extraordinary Claims Need Extraordinary Evidence” (Unspun 171,117). Facts have shown that race is an important issue going into this Presidential race but Obama has never said that his race has given him any advantage over his opponent in fact it is probably the exact opposite. Just as the race is coming to an end it will be interesting to see how much of a factor race will play into the outcome. Will it be the deciding factor, and if it is, will that deciding factor be in Obama’s favor or McCain’s? “To win this campaign, Mr. Obama needs to assure undecided white voters that he shares their values and is worthy of their trust. (W.S.J, Race Issue)
Everyone expects Presidential campaigns to get a little dusty but this race has gotten down right dirty, at least on Senator McCain’s end. The verbal media attacks, Internet rumors, and slanderous pictures that McCain has painted of Obama has caused him to derail his Straight Talk Express bus, as Obama’s website has pointed out, and is showing him to be dishonest and petty. But is it working? Some say “yes” and that is the danger that American’s face. Some of the voting population will believe these claims because “It says what they want to believe, so they assume it’s true” (Unspun, 155) Others, however, may believe the claims because people tend to believe things if they hear it enough and right now McCain’s negative ads far outnumber Obama’s positive ones. Hope and believe, however, that the great people of the United States of America will look past all that and realize that Obama doesn’t need to throw mud on McCain to be great, he’s great because his hands are Squeaky Clean.

Works Cited.

Amy Chozick and Laura Meckler. "Campaign '08: Race Re-Enters the Spotlight As Candidates Turn Negative. " Wall Street Journal [New York, N.Y.] 1 Aug. 2008, Eastern edition: A.5. ProQuest National Newspapers Core. ProQuest. 15 Aug. 2008

Jackson, Brooks and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Un-Spun: Finding Facts in a World of
[Disinformation] New York: Random House, Inc. 2007.

Juan Williams. "The Race Issue Isn't Going Away.” Wall Street Journal [New York, N.Y.] 4 Aug. 2008, Eastern edition: A.13. ProQuest National Newspapers Core. ProQuest. 15 Aug. 2008

"The race canard :Obama should stick to real issues. " Telegram & Gazette [Worcester, Mass.] 1 Aug. 2008,A.6. ABI/INFORM Trade & Industry. ProQuest. 15 Aug. 2008