An Obama flip-flop on negative ads?
posted at 4:50 pm on July 8, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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Jim Geraghty isn’t sure, but the RNC argues Barack Obama reversed himself yet again, this time on negative advertising. In his “New Energy” spot designed for wide broadcast, Obama hits McCain for his support of George Bush and the Bush energy policy for exactly half of the commercial — the first half. Afterwards, Obama speaks about his own energy policy, but manages to offer everything except a viable kilowatt or gallon of gasoline.
Flip-flop? Looks like it to me:
Now watch his pledge from just three months ago:
I may be one of the few who have no problem with negative ads — unless they distort the truth. Candidates have to have the latitude to contrast their positions and their records with those of their opponents, and advertising is an effective way to do it. As long as the candidates remain honest, there is nothing wrong with negative or contrast ads. The RNC and DNC have launched negative ads already, and anyone who doesn’t count these committees as part of the campaigns is willfully fooling themselves.
However, Obama is the one who made the foolish pledge and treated negative ads like leprosy. Like the flag pin, Obama made this an issue, not McCain or the press. He made it as a way to establish his New Politics credentials, and now he has tossed it under the bus along with public financing and other reform credentials. It’s the hypocrisy, and not the negative ad, that reveals so much about Obama.
But there’s plenty in the ad that also casts Obama in a poor light. First, he criticizes McCain for supporting a bill for which Obama himself voted. He then cites a study to claim that McCain voted with Bush 95% of the time that he earlier rejected for casting him as the most liberal Senator in 2007. And while he complains about McCain’s support for drilling, prices going out of sight, and McCain’s twenty-six year tenure in the Senate, what has Obama done in his three years to bring the kind of change that would have prevented higher fuel prices? After all, Obama’s party controlled Congress during the period of rapid energy-price increases. What did Obama and the Democrats do about it while they had the opportunity?
Oh, that’s right. They held hearings, accused speculators of evil, and did exactly squat to bring more supply to market. And nowhere in this list of Obama’s policies does he mention anything — anything at all — that addresses prices by increasing energy supply any faster than the seven years he assumes it will take to bring new oil to market.
Obama. Hypocrisy like you can’t believe, and energy that we’ll never see. Wait for the wind!
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John Geer, a professor at Vanderbilt, wrote a book a couple years ago defending negative campaign ads…because they usually tell the truth. Check it out: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/169963.ctl
warrenmr on July 8, 2008 at 4:54 PM
He’s refining his position.
jackmac on July 8, 2008 at 4:56 PM
HOPE!
CHANGE!
DAMNIT, TURN OFF THE LIGHTS, WHO DO YOU THINK I AM, THE POWER COMPANY?!
ThePrez on July 8, 2008 at 4:56 PM
Fast Track technology.. LMAO..
Democrats Plan: Destroy America so we can get Power.
Chakra Hammer on July 8, 2008 at 4:59 PM
They’re gonna have to redefine chutzpah when this campaign is over.
rockmom on July 8, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Don’t forget the middle class bribe. “vote for me and I will give you a $1000 tax break.”
Actually, it was a pretty funny ad in a sad and pathetic way. Barry is trying to paint McCain with the Bush brush. I don’t recall him criticising McCain without the “spectre of George Bush” close at hand.
Another amusing little distortion is how they state that drilling will take seven years to bring oil to market. That’s debatable, but if the Dems had supported George Bush’s energy plan six years ago, we’d have that oil right now. Barry is pathetic.
Mallard T. Drake on July 8, 2008 at 5:00 PM
Yeah but at least he is Not Juan McShamnestyHalliburonhitlerBoosh!!!
nb4 the fensler
carbon_footprint on July 8, 2008 at 5:00 PM
I smell an implosion of epic proportions. Then again, I am bias.
It’s like his campaign has decided to “rebuild” their candidate after the fact.
McCain should take full advantage of this. Will he? I hope so.
Nelsa on July 8, 2008 at 5:01 PM
The NY Times(And other MSM outlets), also does this for him using his talking points…
Pretty sad how easy the weak Obama has it with all the free media behind him.
Chakra Hammer on July 8, 2008 at 5:04 PM
This campaign is boring.
lorien1973 on July 8, 2008 at 5:04 PM
Drive Small Cars and Wait for the Wind….
ChrisM on July 8, 2008 at 5:04 PM
Democrats Party Memo: Destroy America ‘08
Power IS EVERYTHING!
Chakra Hammer on July 8, 2008 at 5:05 PM
‘Not on drop of oil FOR SEVEN YEARS!11!!1!!’
‘Barack Obama will fast track alternative technologies that will only take decades to provide any real relief to working class families, if ever, while simultaneously raising their food and energy costs’
hmpf. Explain to me again why there’s no difference between these two?
MMW on July 8, 2008 at 5:06 PM
Ed, you got roused at the end. You really ought to flash that more.
As for negative ads, I don’t mind them at all and though I didn’t like the ones that distorted the truth, that dislike has dissipated now that the speed and spread of the fact they are is a lot better now. Ads that distort the truth reflect back on those who make them, kind of like how the left nuts are always really, really helping their cause.
Besides, now ads like that make for really good posts to read.
Dusty on July 8, 2008 at 5:10 PM
And this new position of his is less inartful.
wise_man on July 8, 2008 at 5:10 PM
The Obama campaign has just issued a press release, quoting The Obamassiah: “This is not the Barack Obama I thought I knew”
rbj on July 8, 2008 at 5:14 PM
Hydrogen fuel-cell technology is not going to come to fruition for at least 10 years. Why start now?
VolMagic on July 8, 2008 at 5:16 PM
Can we please quit using the quote “flip-flopping?” Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservitives, Independants, media members, bloggers, everybody.
Am I the only person that gets ill every time I hear it? The only flip-flops that I want to hear about are on my feet.
sandman on July 8, 2008 at 5:17 PM
There’s really only one question to be asked, isn’t there?
How is this helping Michelle Obama’s children?
amerpundit on July 8, 2008 at 5:17 PM
Excellent question. In fact, we can drill oil that will work on day one faster than we can come up with something like this that requires we destroy every car on the road and replace it with a new fuel cell car. And they won’t be cheap.
wise_man on July 8, 2008 at 5:20 PM
My retirement will take 30 years to build why start to worry about it now?
Chakra Hammer on July 8, 2008 at 5:24 PM
Well, they did float the idea of nationalizing big oil companies. Doesn’t that count for something?
a capella on July 8, 2008 at 5:25 PM
Speculation is based on the future price of oil. If no new supply is added, then prices in the future will rise as demand increases, thus driving the speculators to buy up more future oil at present prices. This in turn pushes prices higher.
Now, sending a signal that oil production will increase in the future (i.e. OCS and ANWR drilling) will cause speculators to stop buying future oil at higher prices, as increased supply will lower prices. In the future. Thus, the speculators wise up and dump their overpriced oil futures for a loss, bringing down the price of present day oil.
I don’t expect any congresscritters to understand this, and thus I am sad. Wery, wery sad.
VolMagic on July 8, 2008 at 5:26 PM
BHO, the anointed Islamofascist hugger is in denial!
byteshredder on July 8, 2008 at 5:27 PM
My “ship in a bottle” will take at least 2 months to complete. Why start now?
Destroying all the cars in America will take at least a year. Why start ever?
VolMagic on July 8, 2008 at 5:28 PM
This is what happens when McCain tries to “distance” himself from Bush. He deserves this.
Anita on July 8, 2008 at 5:32 PM
Hey you can’t expect the Dims to work on an energy plan when they’ve got more important things to spend their time (and our money on) — like investigating steroid use in baseball.
AZCoyote on July 8, 2008 at 5:33 PM
Weak Barack, Weak.
Dirthead on July 8, 2008 at 5:36 PM
Ed,
You forgot something. They are also doing photo ops!
terryannonline on July 8, 2008 at 5:41 PM
Removing our combat troops from Iraq will take 16 months (at least). Why do it?
VolMagic on July 8, 2008 at 5:48 PM
That photo of pelosi needs to be viewed at the same time as this chart.
wise_man on July 8, 2008 at 6:01 PM
Wait, what? Obama will give a $1000 tax break to middle class families? Will that be before or after he gives us a $5000+ tax increase by letting the Bush tax cuts expire?
That’s like one of those sneaky “sales” in which a store raises the price of something by 30% the week before they put it on sale for 20% off.
aero on July 8, 2008 at 6:06 PM
That sounds just like a juvenile high school student council pledge, “if you vote for me, we’ll have coke machines in every classroom!”
And the sad part is that people WILL vote for him because of promises such as this. It goes to show you how short sighted and shallow democrats are - the only thing their interested in is how the government can further line their pockets.
sheesh.
pullingmyhairout on July 8, 2008 at 6:13 PM
Let BO eat his waffles. Who cares if people can’t have a boat anymore, or can’t rebuild their house without hiring the work out.
BroncosRock on July 8, 2008 at 6:40 PM
Break the grip of foreign oil?
With tax breaks?
What an idiot.
drjohn on July 8, 2008 at 6:50 PM
Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles only work if there’s an abundant source of hydrogen. You can get hydrogen from natural gas, but the total energy yield is less than that of simply burning natural gas, so why not build cars that run on natural gas? There’s already a natural-gas pipeline infrastructure in place, and natural gas is much cheaper to compress and transport than hydrogen–at the same pressure, natural gas has over 6 times the energy yield as hydrogen per unit volume.
Another way of getting hydrogen is by electrolysis of water, but if the electricity comes from fossil fuels (coal or natural gas), it’s a net energy loser. Hydrogen only saves fossil fuels if the electricity comes from a NUCLEAR power plant–now which candidate wants to build nuclear power plants?
Seven years from drilling to marketable oil is probably longer than reality. But no matter what the real timeframe is, the sooner we start, the sooner we’ll get the oil.
We could have had ANWR oil by NOW if the Democrats hadn’t filibustered it in 2001. They got all bent out of shape over what Cheney might have discussed with the EEEEEVIL oil companies, but where is THEIR energy?
Steve Z on July 8, 2008 at 7:03 PM
“This video is no longer available.”
“This Obama position is no longer available”
drjohn on July 8, 2008 at 8:18 PM
Anita:
I am sorry, I don’t get what you are talking about.
McCain has to distance himself from Bush to some extent, they are not the same men after all. And the truth is McCain has been more respectful of Bush than a good many other people in his party, including a few right wing bloggers I can think of. And pundits. Even Newt Gingrich has taken a whack at Bush. For no reason than the sheer nasty fun of it.
Terrye on July 8, 2008 at 8:33 PM
I just do not know why all these things are seen as mutually exclusive. Some conservation together with more drilling together with alternative fuels and nuclear power can all help. The more things we do the better.
Terrye on July 8, 2008 at 8:34 PM
How does a $1000 tax break help break dependence on foreign oil? I guess he figures we all stop thinking when we hear $1000. But even my liberal friends were outraged by the stimulus giveaway; this is even worse.
And, sure, drilling doesn’t pump any gas for 7 years, but it does send a message to the commodity speculators we’re in it to win it. Obama’s plan won’t pump any gas ever.
PattyJ on July 8, 2008 at 9:53 PM
Wait a minute - apparently we need to start worrying about Hillary again! I see on the news that the Obamessiah is going to go run for office in Germany instead! Damn, he was going to be so easy to beat, and now it turns out the reason he doesn’t have time to debate his American opponent in front of American voters in an American election is that he is planning to campaign in Europe to Europeans!
Turns out he was responsible for the election of American-friendly leaders in France, Germany, the UK and Canada and he wants to be sure he gets credit for repairing the trans-Atlantic alliance!
That’s what I get for not reading the newspapers anymore… I just don’t have a clue about how truly wonderful the Obamessiah really is!!
drunyan8315 on July 8, 2008 at 11:34 PM