Right Now...

Cross-posted at Mydd and Motley Moose

This election is more of choice than Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party. It's more of choice than pro-lifers vs. pro-choicers, the evangelicals vs the agnostics and the NRA vs gun control.

This election, under the direction of the American people, is the opportunity to send a strong, direct and clear message to future congresspersons, senators, governors and other officials. To let them know in no uncertain terms that we will not stand for Rovian-Style campaigns no longer.

It would make clear to Karl Rove and other aspiring figures such as himself, that years of turning National and State Elections into cultural divisions and smearing proud Americans who run for office are over.

Make no mistake Karl Rove is running the show now in the John McCain campaign. This after McCain felt the full jolt of being the opponent of Rove during the 2000 Republican Primary.

Anonymous opponents used "push polling" to suggest that McCain's Bangladeshi born daughter was his own, illegitimate black child. In push polling, a voter gets a call, ostensibly from a polling company, asking which candidate the voter supports. In this case, if the "pollster" determined that the person was a McCain supporter, he made statements designed to create doubt about the senator.

Thus, the "pollsters" asked McCain supporters if they would be more or less likely to vote for McCain if they knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black. In the conservative, race-conscious South, that's not a minor charge. We had no idea who made the phone calls, who paid for them, or how many calls were made. Effective and anonymous: the perfect smear campaign.

The architect behind the "push-poll"? Karl Rove

Karl Rove also made his presence and ugly campaign style a winner in 2004 for George W. Bush's second term. This time using his professional ties to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to produce television ads that "criticized Kerry's Vietnam-era military service and public testimony against American soldiers."

Now in 2008, with the GOP in shambles after the last eight disastrous years and with McCain polling poorly against Obama in the summer, Karl Rove has been summoned again to smear his way to another Presidential victory.

First a word from the Republican nominee on March 11, 2008.

John McCain is now the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. It is critical, as we prepare to face off with whomever the Democrats select as their nominee, that we all follow John's lead and run a respectful campaign focused on the issues and values that are important to the American people.

Throughout the primary election we saw John McCain reject the type of politics that degrade our civics, and this will not change as he prepares to run head-to-head against the Democratic nominee.

John McCain will continue to run on his principles and will focus on the future of our country. The stakes could not be higher in this election, and John will contrast his vision for America with that of Senators Clinton and Obama.

Overheated rhetoric and personal attacks on our opponents distract from the big differences between John McCain's vision for the future of our nation and the Democrats'.

Throughout his life John McCain has held himself to the highest standards and he will continue to run a respectful campaign based on the issues. We expect that all supporters, surrogates and staff will hold themselves to similarly high standards when they are representing the campaign.

McCain broke that promise to the American people early in the campaign.

That's when we saw McCain state that Hamas wants Obama to be President, that Obama did a a disservice by not visiting wounded troops in Germany, revisit the flag pin, and insinuate that Michelle Obama was not patriotic.

But see that wasn't moving the polls much, so enter Karl Rove and his dirty box of "real" smears. John McCain has to have a vivid memory of what this man did to him and his family in 2000, and yet he befriended him and took him on as an advisor.

Bill Ayers, kindergarten sex-education and pigs with lipstick have dominated the McCain "talking points" sent to surrogates...and, trust me, it will get worse.

Just like the last two elections, the GOP cannot win on the issues. They instead will attack the character of our nominee, they will exaggerate, take out of context and blatantly make shit up. They will prey on dividing the country and on the undereducated voter...This is what they do, and it has been successful in the past.

Right now...is our time, as Americans, to insist different type of elections, campaigns and candidates. Voters are tuned in this year, like no other election in our history. It is up to us to educate the voters on issues, this means making phone calls, knocking on doors and being a leader in your community.

This is the year we show Karl Rove, the smear merchant, the door.

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