Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Super Smear Campaigns

By Joe Sims

It looks like the right wing attack and smear machine got into action for Super Tuesday. Seems they were holding back before. The tactic they are using is forwarding e-mails that appear to come from friends. The e-mails are impossible to trace and to respond to. Several candidates were targeted, including Hillary Clinton. The focus seems to have been on Obama. The Washington Post wrote today that:

“Campaign dirty tricks found a new outlet on primary day, as several misleading attacks on presidential candidates were spread via cautionary, last minute e-mails in mass mailings among friends.

Some of the electronic messages that flashed onto computer screens yesterday had been in circulation for weeks -- including one that suggested, falsely, that Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) had not affirmed Israel's right to exist. But Monday night, those messages started arriving in many e-mail inboxes with subject lines such as "FW: Something to consider before voting tomorrow.”


This appears to be an effort to block Black/Jewish unity forming around as an aspect of the broad coalition around Senator Obama.

The Senator’s position on abortion rights have also been raised by other groups. However a key difference is that the latter campaign was signed and in this sense above board even if it misrepresented the postion.

The Nation magazine featured a good story recently on the same subject entitled "The Right Wing Smear Machine." Swift boat tactics are alive and well.

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