The Rev. Wright ad McCain refused to run
(click image to watch)
ABC News has obtained from a former staffer an exclusive copy of an ad produced by the McCain team attacking Obama for his relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright. According to Brian Ross, McCain never saw the spot, even though his team had it fully produced and ready to go.
Even as his campaign fell far behind in the polls, Sen. John McCain refused to authorize the use of a fully-produced 30-second television commercial that criticized Barack Obama for his relationship with the controversial pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
A copy of the spot, obtained by ABC News, indicates the campaign spent the time and money necessary to produce a polished final tape, even after McCain publicly said the pastor should not be made a campaign issue and that he wanted to run a "respectful" campaign. His aides told ABC News that McCain simply decided "he did not want to touch" the Rev. Wright issue.
If there's one thing you have to respect McCain for, it would have to be his adherence to the promise of not bringing up Wright. Sure, independent groups ran a barrage of anti-Wright ads in the final days -- and, indeed, McCain crossed a whole slew of lines throughout the campaign -- but McCain promised to stay away from the issue and he did. The ad in question highlights the importance of character. How ironic is it, then, that the one issue on which McCain displayed true character was the one many Republicans think could have made him some real headway?
Exit question: What does it say about the Republican party when many of its adherents think McCain lost because he didn't sling more mud like this? It's almost as if they think McCain would have won despite any real ideas on how to lead the country if only he were able to remind more voters about a fiery pastor. Pathetic.
...McCain ran somewhat reluctantly but ran nonetheless with the Obama/Ayers meme that Palin began using on her own even though the McCain campaign hadn't decided to use it. Of course, McCain was between a rock and a hard place and was left with the choice between backing up his buddy who began shooting on her own or leaving his running mate to twist in the wind by herself.
But McCain isn't known for always doing the right thing. So whatever ground he may've gained with progressives for not running with the Wright angle, he lost it and then some by backing up Palin with her ill-informed Obama/Ayer smear campaign. With McCain's people leaning away from that, it seems to suggest that Palin had people digging up "dirt" on Obama on their own.
JP
http://giveusthisdayourdailtydread.blogspot.com
was because of Palin's witch-hunting, hands-laying-upon, god-put-Palin-in-office whack job relationship (and that of the Master's Commission, whose graduation ceremony Palin attended and spoke at, and whose own website states a radical relationships and violence in the name of god).
Had they run this ad, there would have been a floodgate opening against Palin. That is the only reason Wright was off the table.
I would have written this had you not beaten me to it.
Character had nothing to do with it.
McCain never ran the ad is because they probably had more effect selling the "He's a Muslim!" meme. Blanketing the airwaves with the fact that he's closely linked to a Reverend would have people question that fallacy.
They figured they would lose more than they would gain if they flagged him as "Radical Christian!" rather than "Secret Muslim!!"
THAT'S why McCain never ran it. Calculated move.
While Rev Wright was serving in Vietnam, McCain was making propaganda videos for viet Charley. God damn, America. 3,000,000 Vietnamese lives lost for what?
Wright never served in Vietnam. Wright served as part of Pres. Johnson's Naval Medical Team.
McCain had no choice but to be on those films.
3,000,000 Vietnamese dead united a communist country.
58,000 Americans died fighting the Cold War.
A little research never hurts.
It seems McCain never used the "kitchen sink" strategy that Hillary used. And yet, she has a spot in the new administration. Maybe if McCain would have used these ads, he could have been one of Obama's top dogs too!!!
Maybe if you'd stop trolling, you could get a life.
You would turn a lovely shade of blue before that happened.
Azure or Cerullean? :)
Royal...a lovely shade, just not upon one's face. :-)
Unless you're part of the Blue Man Group.
I could look that good in latex!
If everyone that visited blogs just read points of view and didn't post, blogs would be real exciting places on the internet. But of course, you are right. It would be much better if every story posted on blogs had everyone in 100% agreement and high fives all around. That would be extremely exciting and the web traffic would explode.
I used to really like and respect you, but you turned into a kvetch for the sake of being a kvetch.
I still very much like and respect your point of view.
puting this issue back on the air would have looked like desparation... and it would have made NO DIFFERENCE. The issue had been aired. THE PEOPLE knew about Rev. Wright... and didn't care. The fact that this :30 was even produced shows how far out of touch the Republicans were who managed McCain's campaign. Palin POUNDED the Bill Aires issue for weeks as did Sean Hannty (for months...) same story... to no effect.
THEY JUST DIDN'T GET IT. We elected the right man for THIS TIME. Palin and Hannity can continue to SPIT IN THE WIND as much as they want over these same issues. All they will get will be their own cold slimy saliva back in their faces.
I completely agree with Reverend Wright "God damn America for killing innocent people" "God damn American for treating people less than human"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36T1fnIafC0
"We bombed Hiroshima, We bombed Nagasaki, we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and never batted an eye"
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans and now we are indignant"
Reverend Wright told the truth and Americans can't take it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36T1fnIafC0
I found this at Kos this past Friday. Obama met with his supports and friends in Chicago. He said, "Obama looked out onto the crowd and said he saw classmates, friends, co-workers, past bosses and some of his earliest political supporters, including Bettylu Saltzman.
"I’m almost speechless here, which I don’t usually get, because this is really a tapestry of our lives. You know, we workout out at the East Bank Club. We worked on education stuff together. We’ve rabble-roused together. We’ve played basketball together. We have golfed, not so well, together. We’ve sat on foundation boards together. And we’ve seen frustrations, but also seen some dreams come true together. And so, I just want you to know that all of you had more to do with us being successful than just raising money. You helped shape Michelle and myself. Many of you have been part of our children’s lives. Many of you have helped to support us, through thick and through thin. And so, I’m just very grateful to all of you. Now, we’ve got a lot of work to do, and I don’t want to sugar-coat the amount of work there is to be done."
"We didn’t just win, but we ran and won in the right way," Obama said.
Yes he did! He didn't get in the mud with his campaign. McCain was so desperate that he allowed Palin to run off her pit bull leash. I give him no credit for not getting muddier than he did.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
Oops, I should have said that I give Obama credit for not getting muddy and I give no slack to McCain just because the words did not come directly from his mouth, but from the McCain campaign.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
I agree with MsJoann. Once he picked Palin with her wackjob minister Wright had to be off the table. And boy did the Dems show restraint on the one. Then there was the fact that Barack had been so over vetted on Wright by Hillary. It gave him the opportunity to give the most important speech on Race since M L King's "I had a dream" speech.
Ethics and restraint had nothing to do with it.
Obama won! celebrate! Move forward!
Why all this nostalgia for being victimized/losing/cheated? Just get over it!
This sounds more like bush re-writing history, but then what can you expect from a man who says his hero is reagan.
The gop had no chance in the general and the birthers will never accept their party destroyed our country.
And they'd put much time and effort into sliming Obama for being Muslim. So, IMO, they couldn't run it.
is a great point! And all those people sending crazy e-mails about Obama, Muslims, terrorism, the end days, etc. would really have their panties in a bunch.
And of course, one chose to walk out on his crippled wife.
Sean Hannity right now is chewing on this tidbit like a pit bull and a piece of raw meat.Keep feeding him, because someday he is going to explode!
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/wa...
Bill Moyers interviewed Jeremiah Wright not long after the Repukes started making a big stink and re-running only the one sentence.
Moyers ran extended clips that led up to the one inflammatory sentence. If anyone watches it, you can see that when it's taken in context, Wright didn't say anything terribly inflamatory.
The "big story" is much ado about nothing, but the endless loop of the one sentence sure did make a huge stink - and still does. Otherwise ABC wouldn't revive this dead story. ABC has become a mouthpiece for mixing religion with politics on behalf of the Repukes. Their political leanings are all too obviously Republican all the way, have been for years, since they helped promote Georgie's and Dickie's illegal and unconstitutional war in Iraq. They're still covering Georgie's ass, and McCain's also, if they're bringing up this crap again.
I write this wishing we would go back to a total separation of church and state and get religion and any mention of religion OUT of politics once and for all. I'm sick of hypocritical piety that has no business in politics or in political campaigns.
Yes that is correct. It was only one sentence taken out of context and what he said was correct.
Who knows why McCouldn't didn't run the ads and why Wright was off the table. From what I have been able to figure out McLame was not the real McCain. When he hired Palin it was the end. He caved in. And when he was up on stage with her while she was doing the Ayers thing and the socialism thing and while he sat back and let her do the the "Obama does not think like us" crap... Oh to hell with McCain. He sold his soul. I don't understand why he didn't do the Rev. Wright stuff becasue what he did do was just as bad. I find it very strange for a very strangely run campaign. But its over and good luck to McCain and Palin and her followers can go straight to hell.
Worse than being pathetic is the fact that most of them do not even realize how pathetic they are.
Reverend Wright was vilified and attacked by the rich old white GOP men for quoting a white GOP former ambassador David Peck.
God should damn America for its racism and double-standard.
God should damn America for the Vietnam War, the slaughter of 3 million Vietnamese and the attempted genocide of the Vietnamese people.
God should also damn America for an illegal invasion of Iraq, the murder of hundreds fo thousands of Iraqis.
God doesn't bless evil sorry GOP.
run an ad with Hitler admirer/Jew hater John Hagee and another McCain "buddy" convicted criminal G. Gordon Liddy.
Bitterness of the GOP (and Fox News) and their denial, refusal, to address the real issues America faces is a further example of the GOP's obscession with their impending ideological demise over concerns for America itself. They care more for the GOP than Americans or America.
Fox and the GOP should admit that McCain not only made the worse choice for vice president in the history of American campaigns; but, he ran the worse campaign ever PERIOD.
That Republicans are hanging on to these tactics demonstrates that they learned nothing from the 2008 campaign experience.
This ad and its time release only advances what Americans already sense and are turned off by; the GOP is weird.
The GOP continues casting itself as having dug in its heels in an era gone by. Change is not just a word, it's actually palpable in the American spirit and the GOP offers only more of the same hate, lies, distortions, revisions of history and spin.
This ad leaves a distasteful reaffirmation that we as Americans voted correctly and are ridding ourselves from what the GOP offered and continues to offer.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this did air (or something very similar) here in Phoenix, AZ the day before the election. I don't remember which station.
somewhere (PA maybe?? I don't remember.) but I saw a Rev. Wright commercial literally at every commercial break. It was similar but not one put out by McCain. I remember commenting over at our blog (TheZoo) that I was sick of seeing that bullshit commercial. It was run for two days straight on every station just prior to the election. It was from a 527.
In my state, the commercial ran a couple times every hour during the last two days. Obama lost MT. The 527 group had the word Republican in it's name, so McCain doesn't get any credit for refusing to run the ad. He sat by and let it happen.
Mc Cain had a chance to remake the Republican party by moving away from the poisonous Neocon message that was imbedded into it during the last decade. Instead, he copped out by playing both sides of the fence--deploying an paper thin image of "independence" while pandering to the "base" that wrecked their party.
Cowardice will ultimately be his legacy---when the opportunity came to prove he was an independent thinker---he caved to political expediency and a failed ideology instead of courageously standing for what was right and fair in the mind of the voters.
I don't believe he held back this ad because of altruism, in reality he had self centered motivations. That would be more consistent with his actions during the campaign. To believe otherwise promotes a phony image of his competence and courage that he never earned with his actions.
Like so many of his colleagues, he took the easy road of political pandering and compromise instead of the more difficult but rewarding path of integrity and political courage.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
Shouldn't "everbody" get a point for that?
/heh
...that McCain kept his word about Wright without respecting McCain in any way. Respect is not doled out in little dollops, it's earned by being generally honest and trustworthy (among other qualities). McCain, as you note, crossed all kinds of lines, and in doing so he lost any claim to genuine respect. The best that can be said for McCain is that he didn't lie about everything. Who does?
McCain bought and paid for by the Evangelical/Oil Society. The reason McCain probably didn't run that ad is because the part about McCain choosing to stay isn't true. It might have sparked too much interest from bloggers who would have researched the hell out of it.
Hey, does this sound familiar?
AT LEAST McCain didn't attack Obama on the Jeremiah Wright issue.
AT LEAST Bush kept us safe.
Two pathetic husks, weakly trying to shore up the idea that they have principles and character.
He or they didn't run on Wright because it would have cost them dearly with independents. And would have driven up african american votes even more. And by the way: Wright was alive and kicking in the conservative echo chamber all autumn.
So can't we stop this "he refused to go there" bullshit, already? They used every dirt they could think of (celebrity, Ayers, kindergarten sex, taxes, communism, islam - you name it). With Wright they just thought it was too used up to use it again. That's all.
And it wouldn't have made an inch of a difference, anyway.
They didn't run this because they kew it would come back to haunt them. If they had believed they could have gotten votes with this crap they would have run it 24/7, it's the kind of scum they are.
Now for the people that think the Reverend Wright was doing something wrong! How stupid can you be?
Do you really think the American government has acted in good faith with all the other people in the world?
Have you ever looked at the thing we do through the world bank?
Have you ever thought about all the dictators we have helped and proped up for so many years?
All the medeling we have done in other countries.
I agree with the reverend god damn the American corporate controlled government. I hope the people wake up and put all the current congress and senate people out of government and start dealing in a honest and fair maner with everyone!
There were several 527 groups that were more than happy to air all the Rev Wright ads for the McCain campaign. I am not sure it did them any good but they did run them non the less.
If McCain would have run an above the waist campaign, picked a Republican woman far more qualified than Palin...the race would have been much closer
"How ironic is it, then, that the one issue on which McCain displayed true character was the one many Republicans think could have made him some real headway?"
And if he had refused to do something else, THAT would have been, in the opinion of many Republicans, the one issue on which he could have made headway. People were sick of Republican rule, and John McCain gaven them absolutely no indication that he would be any better than the past eight years.
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