"The Republican Party has been successfully scaring voters since 1968," [Newsweek] says, through "innuendo and code." McCain "may not be able to resist casting doubt on Obama's patriotism," and there's a question whether he can or wants to "rein in the merchants of slime and sellers of hate."
Here are the Obama rules in detail: He can't be called a "liberal" ("the same names and labels they pin on everyone," as Obama puts it); his toughness on the war on terror can't be questioned ("attempts to play on our fears"); his extreme positions on social issues can't be exposed ("the same efforts to distract us from the issues that
affect our lives" and "turn us against each other"); and his Chicago background
too is off-limits ("pouncing on every gaffe and association and fake controversy"). Besides that, it should be a freewheeling and spirited campaign.
Needless to say, the Obama campaign isn't going to be able to put a lid on smearing. People on the right have a lot of money and a lot of ingenuity and they're going to be putting everything they have into developing the next the next Willie Horton or Swift Boat ad campaign. The right is going to be as vicious as they can be and some of the smears are going to hit the mark. The Obama campaign should expect that.
The question is whether anybody is going to take the onslaught of right-wing smearing seriously or whether the public has already tuned the right-wing out as a serious voice on American politics.
As a conservative, Lowry is pretty pessimistic on this point. In a telling reflection on how little confidence the right has in the conservative brand, Lowry demands that Obama refrain from calling John McCain a "conservative" or [labeling] him in any other way.
If "conservatism" has become such a negative brand that calling someone a conservative is a smear, the "Obama Rules" are just a reflection of how little the public wants to hear from the right.
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