Hey guys, sorry to change the direction of this a bit. This has been on my mind for awhile:
I've been following Obama and Romney on Twitter for a year now. Despite what their policies and promises are, they are putting a very negative face forward. The amount of smear going on is embarrassing. It makes me feel sick that one of the most powerful men in the world and the person trying to become that want to portray themselves as 5 year olds fighting for a candy bar. I don't get it. I really don't. I've never understood smear campaigns in the first place. A couple years ago Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat as a Republican. He used nothing but positive messages in his campaign. He made people feel comfortable about letting him be their representative. Meanwhile, his competitor (forget her name) ran nothing but smear campaigns and lost badly. There's something to be said about how a candidate wants to be perceived. I think it has more of an effect on the general public than actual policies and campaign promises. What do yo think?
Can you link to some of this smear stuff you're talking about with Obama?
From my experience, and after research, I've found that just about everything Romney tries to smear Obama on is a
complete lie, or just so blatantly hypocritical that it's disgusting. Serving from memory 4 years ago, Obama stayed pretty above the fray. He did run some negative ads, but for the most part and comparatively, they were based upon the record. Meanwhile, McCain threw out some new bullshit every 4 days, trying to call him a terrorist, and bad for America. Just becuase an ad is negative towards someone else, doesn't mean it's inappropriate. It's inappropriate when it distorts the record, or leaves out important information.
So what I think is that, ya, a clean campaign would be nice. Of course, some negative ads are necessary, as that's part of who someone is, and who their record is. However, it's usually not accurate, it's usually a lie, and it's usually distortion. Now, unless both parties agree to run a clean campaign, that pretty much means you're going to devolve into a dirty race. In this instance, Romney has been basically slandering Obama for four years.* When you have someone so viciously attacking you, it's basically self-defense.
*Lately, the man's showing just how much of a political sleaze ball he is. He attacked Obama for being a Harvard Elite, that he "spent too much time at Harvard" - WHEN ROMNEY HAS MOE DEGREES AND WENT TO HARVARD FOR A LONGER PERIOD OF TIME. I just cant' think of anything Obama has ever done that comes close to comparing at all to these kind of tactics.
*edit*
Oh, so I thought of the worse Obama attack so far - his comment about Romney's wife not having to work. I think the point being made is valid, but it was horribly expressed. IT wasn't that being a stay at home wife is a bad thing - it's that for many, many, many people,
that's not an option. I'm sure my own mom would have
loved to raise me more, but our family needed the money, so she worked 12 + hours a day, and barely got to see me.
Hopefully that point doesn't get lost, because it's an important one.
Topic: Election 2012 (Read 235742 times)
