Over the last week or so, a lot of media outlets have started pushing back on McCain’s advertising. Mainstream pundits are writing columns calling him a liar; news outlets are openly and with a bit of hostility challenging McCain campaign spokespersons. The current news cycle is being dominated by the “McCain’s dishonest advertising” story. Obama is capitalizing on this now with his advertising.
If you want to know how bad it is, here’s a Fox News segment (!) where the host challenges Tucker Bounds on why the McCain campaign is saying that Obama will raise taxes on the middle class when virtually all independent analysts agree that the middle class will see a decrease.
[As an aside: I have trouble taking Tucker Bounds seriously when he looks like a young Dana Carvey doing an impression of Tucker Bounds.]
This thread isn’t about whether or not the McCain campaign is being dishonest, or to what degree–we’ve got lots of those. What I want to discuss is whether or not the media’s and the Obama campaign’s pushing of the “McCain is dishonest” meme will hurt McCain. So far McCain isn’t seeing any drop in the polls that would seem to reflect this story sinking in with the electorate; in some cases he’s apparently getting a bump.
I predict we have not yet seen bottom. Also that the polls will only vary about 5 pts back and forth for the rest of the campaign, and that McCain still wins. I don’t think there will be a point of “too much lying” because the people who are going to make the difference aren’t really paying attention to it anyway.
It’s not surprising that the polls haven’t caught up yet. The McCain as liar narrative only really caught traction last week. And it’s really only today, after Rove and Fox News joined in that things really got rolling. McCain is only now coming down off of his convention bounce, it’ll be a few days, if not another week or so, until we see if this is catching on.
What is surprising to me is that this is catching on with all the media all at once. I’m beginning to understand why conspiracy theorists believe that media is controlled by some central cabal.
I’m really surprised that both Rove and Fox News have weighed in. That’s what’s making me go all conspiracy theorist. Why don’t they want John McCain to win? I don’t really believe that they don’t, but I don’t trust any of them as far as I can kick 'em, so I’m wondering exactly what’s going on here.
Rove screwed up. He was attacking Obama and inadvertently admitted that some of John McCain’s ads “went too far” and “weren’t 100% truthful” (IIRC), and that became the story.
Fox has made a truce with Obama. Literally. Murdoch and Ailes met with Senator Obama and had some negotiations. Murdoch has become less conservative recently, and he knows that if Fox continued as it has been they’d be pariahs during the Obama administration. Remember when Obama appeared on O’Reilly? Fruits of that meeting. I’d bet that stuff like this, and less bullshit implications about Obama being a Muslim, are as well.
I think that the kind of person who is paying attention enough to be aware of the change in attitudes by the media towards McCain is also the kind of person who was aware of that McCain was being dishonest in his ads to begin with.
This coverage will not get to the ‘low information’ voter who is likely to believe the lies so there will be no penalty to McCain.
Well, okay, that’s all very reasonable. I had read a story about Obama and Ailes meeting, but I hadn’t really thought it would turn into a long-term thing - just a ceasefire in order to get him on O’Reilly.
Well the Post endorsed McCain, so I don’t really know just how much Murdoch likes Obama. But clever of Obama to try to sway him over. Don’t let it be said that he doesn’t understand power.
But Murdoch did like Obama during the primaries. That’s for sure. Maybe it means he’ll go easier on him? I have noticed the Post doesn’t seem to take the bait most days.
As far as Obama on O’Reilly? I seriously don’t think any ceasefire had to be given. He just seems like that kind of guy. He just had his way with Bill.
Nah. I mean, you’re right if this is a blip and it stops in the next couple of days. But if the media starts chanting “Liar, Liar” about McCain, that’s exactly the sort of thing that sways the undecided low-information voters. The same thing helped sink Gore, and that wasn’t even really true.
It may not hurt McCain enough, but it’ll hurt him.
I think the un-informed voters will likely stay un-informed. Maybe these are my blue roots showing, but I just don’t think Republicans are held to the same standard of truth as Democratic candidates are. I think the Gore is a liar theme that emerged proved that: Gore was guilty of some exagerations at best, while Bush was telling outright whoppers during the campaign and somehow Gore was the more dishonest candidate.
I was speculating about this myself, as I tightened the tinfoil. The Republican elite, the high-information Republicans, the party elders, all seem pretty displeased with the Palin pick, and they weren’t enamored of McCain in the first place. I wonder if they didn’t decide to let McCain go down with the ship, planning to refloat it for 2012/16 with the next generation.
There’s sort of a precedent for this kind of thing, in Canada. After Brian Mulroney’s second term, he was Bush-level unpopular, and the Progressive Conservative brand was in the toilet. The PCs knew that they were going to lose, and lose big, in the next election. So when Mulroney retired as party leader, they nominated Kim Campbell, one of the last of his lieutenants, and let her bear the brunt of the wrath of Canadians–which meant the PCs going from a majority gov’t to only two seats in the House of Commons. Two–they lost “official party” status. Campbell resigned, and after a decade of schismatic silliness, the conservatives are back as a force under Harper.