The Republican Party and independent groups could take the low road against Barack Obama, freeing presumptive nominee John McCain to take the high road.
Posted on 03/02/2008 9:08:25 PM PST by SmithL
The attack will include an assault on his thin record of achievement and his limited experience coupled with sometimes anonymous insinuations about his cultural background. Republican officials can hit him high while talk-show hosts and independent groups hit him low.
It could go something like this: He was the most liberal senator of 2007, according to the National Journal, a respected Washington research publication. He's weak and untested on national security. He's dangerously naive. (And pssst: his middle name's Hussein, and his last name rhymes with Osama.)
Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain already is challenging Obama on issues. While he acknowledges Obama's inspirational persona, McCain contrasts his own record -- a 71-year-old war veteran and experienced conservative lawmaker -- with that of a 46-year-old, first-term liberal senator who has no military experience and says he'd raise taxes.
As for the National Journal rating, McCain campaign manager Rick Davis predicted that it would be all over campaign mailers: "That'll be right there on your refrigerator under one of those magnets."
McCain senior adviser Charlie Black said that when the race narrows to a McCain-Obama duel, as expected, voters will take a long, hard look at Obama, whose success thus far has been largely a reflection of his personal charisma.
"This country is a right-of-center country," Black said. General-election voters "don't want more government spending, they don't want higher taxes, they don't want to see their health care system have more government involvement."
Regarding Obama's Muslim relatives, Black said, "I can't imagine that being anything we're going to talk about."
On another front that could turn off some voters -- Obama's admitted marijuana and cocaine use as a youth -- Black said: "I think McCain's unlikely to touch on that. John McCain is not a negative campaigner. He especially does not like negative personal campaigning."
But McCain wouldn't have to use such tactics himself.
The Republican Party would launch its own attacks. Already, Republican researchers are drawing up timelines contrasting what student Obama or young-adult Obama was doing while adult McCain was in Vietnam or legislating in Congress.
And some conservative talk-show hosts and bloggers like to portray Obama as a Muslim.
Michael Reagan, the former president's son and a conservative talk-show host himself, opposes Obama's liberal policies but despises the fact that some of his callers refer to Obama by his middle name.
"I truly believe when someone uses Barack Hussein Obama, that's ... their way of saying the N-word, and it's copping out."
"Do you remember Ronald Reagan's middle name? Do you remember Jimmy Carter's middle name? Conservatives are using it as the N-word. The man was named by his father, who happened to be Kenyan. I hope it does not work. ... The idea he is some Manchurian Muslim candidate is outrageous to me."
Then there are independent groups, which may run their own ads attacking Obama.
Jerome Corsi, a co-author of "Unfit for Command," the text behind the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" assault on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's war credentials in 2004, said that Obama's background would be picked over and some of it aired, perhaps by Corsi himself.
"The time he spent in Indonesia, what was he doing there?" said Corsi, who also writes for WorldNetDaily, a conservative online news site. (Obama was 6 to 10 years old while he was in Indonesia.) "The drug years: What period were they and when did they really start and stop?"
Corsi also intends to research Obama's late mother, Obama's connections to Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga and Odinga's ties to Muslim groups, and some of Obama's early mentors who took radical leftist or separatist stands.
Those mentors include community organizer Saul Alinsky and Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who's retiring as the longtime minister of Obama's church and has praised the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam founder Louis Farrakhan. Obama has condemned Farrakhan and stressed his support of Israel to Jewish leaders, but he remains a member of Wright's church.
The photo
Last week, Barack Obama contended with a photo circulated anonymously that featured him on a 2006 visit to Kenya wearing a Somali outfit and looking vaguely Muslim. At a John McCain rally, an Ohio talk-show host repeatedly invoked Obama's middle name, "Hussein," a tactic that McCain denounced.
Obama's father's side of the family is African and Muslim, and Obama spent some childhood years in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
But he was raised by his divorced American mother, who wasn't Muslim, and her parents. As an adult, Obama joined the United Church of Christ, albeit in a black Chicago congregation whose preacher has a somewhat radical reputation.
The Republican Party and independent groups could take the low road against Barack Obama, freeing presumptive nominee John McCain to take the high road.
The Republican Party and independent groups could take the low road against Barack Obama, freeing presumptive nominee John McCain to take the high road.Lower than Hillary?
No? I didn't think so.
What kind of a name is Barack?
If you take the first 3 letters ‘Bar’ and put them at the end, it turns into, Ackbar.
Tell the truth about Barrack Obama; stick with facts. That is all Republicans need be armed with, except for maybe some stinger missiles.
I believe it is Arabic, derived from the Hebrew word “Baruch,” meaning “blessed.”
Why is the MSM sooooooo intent on giving us ideas on how to attack Obama? And now, right before Texas and Ohio? I suspect they’re in the bag for Clinton - doing her dirty work and trying to blame the right... a Clinton “twofer”.
Baruch works for me. Barack?- not so much.
I know a lot of Freepers are probably Southerners and Midwesterners, so they may assume that Northeasterners are all a bunch of crazy liberals who will go giddy for Obama, but I assure you, they won’t. I grew up in a Northern ethnic Catholic family in a neighborhood filled with Italians and Poles. They all voted for John Kerry in 2004 because he was their kind of Democrat. He was a veteran, a Catholic, went to Mass, his last name sounded Irish, and he had a Pat Buchanan foreign policy. That’s who these folks are. But Barack Obama is anathema to them. He’s effete. He’s a snob. He’s over-educated. He’s your typical latte liberal. I’m telling you, Northeastern Italians and Poles and Irish folks won’t vote for Obama the way they voted for Kerry. You will see lots of Northeastern states in play, especially since McCain is more of a moderate and more acceptable to those voters.
He ought to find a different church and if not it will be a major campaign issue.
He belongs to a racist anti-semitic church.
The McCain democrats will be massive in number.
Or the name of Mohammed’s horse that he rode to heaven.
Yup. PA, NJ, and NH are all states that could go for McCain against Obama. NY, MA, and RI are probably too Democratic, but the margins will be closer than they have been in years.
Does majority not know his middle name today? He has been saying his name and dealing with allegations of being ‘Muslim’ on National TV for a while. Dems dealt with it in their debates too. So its hard to imagine Majority is oblivous to his background and history.
First of all, Obama will NOT be the nominee.
Question is that all the dirt that has already been dumped on Klintons in the past, will Republican surrogates bring it up again? Has Hillary been inoculated against all those charges? Do new facts have to be dug up, since Klintons stole furniture from White House and pardoned criminals for money?
McCain is not going to campaign negative. It would be interesting to see if GOP decides to take negative route.
From the February 28 edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes:
HANNITY: So, as the election season kicks into high gear, we have been repeatedly reminded of Mitt Romney’s affiliation with the Mormon church, Latter Day Saints.
However, new information has recently come to light regarding the Trinity Unity [sic] Church in Chicago. That’s the one that Senator Barack Obama calls home. Trinity Church’s congregation subscribes to a 10-point list, which they refer to as, quote, “Afrocentric.” Now, a closer look at the church’s vision has led many to call them separatist and, in some cases, even drawing comparisons to a cult.
Joining us now with more on the Trinity Union Church is columnist Erik Rush.
Erik, thank you for being with us, my friend. Appreciate it.
RUSH: Thank you — pleasure to be here.
HANNITY: Let’s — let’s look — if we look specifically at the 10 items in the church — for example: commitment to God. Basics, simple — nobody will disagree.
RUSH: Right.
HANNITY: Commitment to the black community. What if it was a commitment to the white community? Commitment to the white family versus commitment to this church, which says commitment to the black family.
RUSH: Right.
HANNITY: Your thoughts?
RUSH: Well, that — well, the first thing I did in the column that I wrote was interpolated the words black for white, and I looked at it and suddenly, I was looking at this really scary doctrine, you know. It was something that you’d see in more like a cult or an Aryan Brethren Church or something like that.
I would go beyond saying that they’re Afrocentric. They’re African-centric. They refer to themselves as an African people, and that somewhat disturbs me from the viewpoint of, well, do they consider themselves Americans? Do they consider themselves Christians? Are they worshipping Christ? Are they worshipping African things black? Well, I mean, what is it?
HANNITY: Well, let me ask you that because, beyond what we just mentioned, you know, the commitment to the black community, the black family, you know, the black work ethic they mentioned in this document, the black community, pledge allegiance to black leadership who embrace the “Black Value System.”
RUSH: Right.
HANNITY: You know, if there were a presidential candidate and they were part of a church and, as you point out in your column, you substitute the word “black” for the word “white,” there would be an outrage in this country.
RUSH: Yes. Massive
HANNITY: There would be cries of racism in this country.
RUSH: Massive.
HANNITY: Will there — will this even be a controversy in your view?
RUSH: I think that it could become something of an issue. You know, I’ve had people flaming me, but I’ve also had people writing me saying, you know, “What took you guys” — I guess it means, the media — “so long to uncover this, because they really are quite cultish, quite separatist?”
COLMES: Mr. Rush, this is Alan Colmes. I have a question. Are you questioning Barack Obama’s Christianity?
RUSH: Yeah.
COLMES: Who are you to do that?
RUSH: Anyone just the same as anyone else who can make a discernment about someone’s faith.
—K.H.
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian... Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain “true to our native land,” the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.
The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:
1. A congregation committed to ADORATION.
2. A congregation preaching SALVATION.
3. A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
4. A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
5. A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
6. A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
7. A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
8. A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
9. A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
10. A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.
Relationship with Barack Obama
The title of Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope was taken from a sermon written by Wright.[5] Obama first met Wright and joined his church while he was working as a community organizer prior to attending Harvard Law School. Obama’s connection to Wright first drew attention in a February 2007 Rolling Stone article which described a speech in which Wright forcefully spoke about racism against African-Americans.[6] Citing the article and fears that any further controversy would harm the church, Obama scrapped plans of having Wright introduce him at his Presidential announcement. [7]
This only drew further interest into Wright’s preaching of Black liberation theology which some conservative critics say promotes “a sort of racial exclusivity”.[8] Wright has rejected this notion by saying that “The African-centered point of view does not assume superiority, nor does it assume separatism. It assumes Africans speaking for themselves as subjects in history, not objects in history.”[9]
During the course of the campaign, Wright has also attracted controversy for his association with Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam.[10] Wright travelled to Libya with Farrakhan in the 1980s. In 2007, Wright addressed this by saying “When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli to visit Colonel Gadaffi with Farrakhan, a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.”[11] In 2007, Trumpet Magazine (published and edited by Wright’s daughter) presented the Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter Award to Farrakhan, whom it said “truly epitomized greatness.”[12] Wright is quoted in the magazine offering praise of Farrakhan “as one of the 20th and. 21st century giants of the African American religious experience” and also praised Farrakhan’s “integrity and honesty.”[13] In response, Obama noted his disagreement with the decision to give the award to Farrakhan; his statement was praised by Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League.[14]
In addition, Wright has said that Zionism has an element of “white racism”, and that the attacks on 9/11 were a consequence of violent American policies and proved that “people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West went on its merry way of ignoring Black concerns.”[15]
I just had a thought: All males born after December 31, 1959 by law have to register for Selective Service. Do we know if Senator Barack Hussein Obama registered? That would be something for a Drudge, Rush or Malkin to investigate.
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