The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal Editorial, 4/27/8
Sen. John McCain presents himself as a candidate who doesn’t observe the usual rules of political campaigns, or more accurately, believes there should actually be some.
In an era where anything goes in campaign advertising and virtually no attempt to destroy the opposition is considered off limits, McCain has proclaimed a higher standard for himself and his party.
Last week, McCain chastised the North Carolina Republican Party for running an ad against two Democratic gubernatorial candidates that included the most incendiary of the video clips of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s now retired pastor. It linked the state candidates to Obama and, by extension, Wright. It declared, in effect, guilt by association for the candidates who, because they have endorsed Obama, who is associated with Wright, are therefore “too extreme” for North Carolinians.
If that sounds familiar, it’s because something of the same strategy – minus the Rev. Wright clip – is under way in the 1st District congressional race as Greg Davis and the Republican Party try to tarnish Democratic candidate Travis Childers, the leader in last Tuesday’s special election balloting, with the Obama brush. Unable to tag Childers himself as an out-of-touch liberal since his position on the hot-button social issues is uniformly conservative, the Republicans instead are aggressively advancing the premise that just by being a Democratic member of Congress Childers will advance the liberal cause which, Davis says, is counter to “Mississippi moral values.”
Magnolia Tribune
