The Osterley Times: US election: It's the most vicious election campaign ever

There's a very interesting article in today's Observer detailing how this US election is going to be the most vicious ever and how this is mostly down to the Republicans and Steve Schmidt, a protégé of Bush's guru, Karl Rove.

Schmidt works on the principles of repeating simple messages loudly and often. Ads attack Obama as a 'celebrity' or a faux-messiah. By doing so they hope to turn Obama's greatest strength - his ability to inspire - into a fatal flaw. That is backed up by another line: that Obama is simply not fit to be president. NotReady08 is the name of a website set up by the campaign. The language can be harsh. 'We are in the hunt for the White House. Barack Obama is going to have to step up with more than a smart tongue, snappy words and a nice suit,' said Maryland Republican politician Michael Steele.

The campaign will happily twist words. In the ad that Giuliani showed, Obama was hit for referring to the 'tiny' threat from a nuclear Iran. In reality Obama had been pointing out that the problem of Iran was '... tiny compared to the Soviet Union'. Others have interspersed footage of the Democrat candidate with images of Britney Spears. One jokey advert painted him as a Moses-type figure capable of parting the Red Sea. Mocking his message of 'hope' and 'change', radio host Rush Limbaugh has taken to referring on-air to Obama as simply 'the Messiah'.

The Republicans are very good at this shit and they are very good at it because they are the most unprincipled people you are ever likely to meet. They will literally do or say anything in order to win. And, as the article points out, one of the ways that they do this is by acting as if there is no such thing as the past and hoping that the American electorate are too stupid to see what they are doing.

It was to this end that they last week found themselves on the side of Hillary Clinton:

All last week Republicans lauded the achievements and brilliance of Hillary Clinton, seeking to exploit divisions in the Democratic Party. It has rounded up former Clinton supporters who now back McCain and paraded them like captured prisoners of war. '[McCain] really does admire and respect her and honours the campaign that she ran,' said Carly Fiorina, a top McCain adviser. Those are astonishing words from a senior figure in a party which spent two decades demonising Clinton as a left-wing uber-feminist. But that is the key to the success of the Republican attack machine: the past does not exist. What matters is what works now.

And it was to that end that McCain, the man who claims always to put country before party, put a nonentity within a 72 year old's heartbeat of being the most powerful person in the world, in the hope that it might win him a few points in the polls. That decision alone is the most scandalous thing I think I have witnessed in this entire campaign. It reveals McCain to be utterly without substance.

Like his wife lying about Mother Teresa asking her to adopt a child, a lie which McCain must have been in on, he has now shown that he cares about nothing other than victory.

At the beginning of this campaign I genuinely thought of him as a man of honour. That has gone now. Mother Teresa saw that off. I now see a man who will do and say anything, even things which he knows to be lies, if he thinks it might help him. And he has a large army of Republican liars ready to assist, including Jerome Corsi the author of the almost utterly fictional account of Obama's life "Obama Nation".

The Obama Nation has been a bestseller, relentlessly promoted by sympathetic media figures such as Fox News's conservative host Sean Hannity. On his show, Hannity allowed Corsi to claim Obama wanted to allow women to have 'abortions' even after their child was born. Instead of refuting the ridiculous claim, Hannity merely expressed shock. The incident forced a liberal media watchdog to issue an analysis showing Obama had never actually supported the murder of newborn children.

I suppose, speaking from across the ocean, the thing I find most shocking witnessing the way American elections play out, is the role of the media. That people like Hannity, O'Reilly and Limbaugh are allowed to take to the airwaves and spread lies is something which I still find genuinely shocking.

And that they are given carte blanche to do so whilst complaining about "liberal media bias" always makes me think of George Orwell.

And that all of this is coming from a man who stood in front of his nation and claimed that he wanted a "respectful campaign".

The subject arose when a questioner at Episcopal High School asked McCain whether the prospect of two senators running against each other in the fall might lead to less negativity.

McCain said he hopes so, adding that he respects both Obama and Clinton, and believes they respect him. "Americans want more respectful campaigns," he added.

In actuality, McCain has dragged his campaign into the gutter. And, by proposing Sarah Palin as his Vice President, he has shown that he would throw the country to the dogs if he thought it would get him elected. Just listen to the people who know her and how they have reacted to her appointment:

From the Republican State Senate President Lyda Green:
"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin's hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
Anchorage Democratic state Sen. Hollis French said it's a huge mistake by McCain and "reflects very, very badly on his judgment." French said Palin's experience running the state for less than two years hasn't prepared her for this.

But the Republicans have been selling shit as sugar since the days of Lee Atwater, they literally know nothing else:

The father of the modern Republican attack machine was Lee Atwater, a South Carolina native with a passion for blues guitar and brutal politics who, before he died of brain cancer in 1991, wrote letters of apology to many of those his aggressive campaigning had destroyed.

Before his profound change of heart Atwater changed the face of American politics. During the 1970s Atwater showed a flair for making the personal into the political. His tactics were condemned but they were effective, most notably in the destruction of Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in 1988 and the election of George Bush senior. Dukakis was accused of being a depressive, his wife was attacked as having once burned an American flag and finally he was hit by the infamous race-baiting ad that featured black murderer Willie Horton who committed armed robbery and rape after being released on a weekend furlough programme. 'Lee Atwater ruined the business of politics. It all began with him,' said McAuliffe.

Atwater also mentored the young Karl Rove. Rove, in his turn, mentored Schmidt. 'There is a reason why Steve Schmidt, who was mentored by Rove who was mentored by Atwater, is running John McCain's campaign,' said Joe Conason, author of the book Big Lies. That reason is simple - these tactics work.

So the Republicans, despite promising a "respectful" campaign, are wallowing in lies and half truths and attack ads. And McCain has shown such an utter lack of judgement in his VP pick that his run for the presidency deserves to end right here.

But the well oiled Republican attack dog machine is just beginning to get into gear. Soon, it's going to be sexist to call Palin unqualified and that elitist Obama is going to be looking down his nose at this fine mother of five.

Fasten your seat belts, we're in for a bumpy ride.

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