Yeah, what we really need is a preznit who's morally strong enough to kill retarded people by deadly execution.

That's the ticket.

The best way to handle these coming assaults is like this:

#1 - GO ON THE OFFENSIVE. I am sick to death, year after year, of hearing the Democrats say "This time, we're going to hit back!" Hit back, how I hate that wussy phrase. "Hit back". How about "punch first"? Each and every single day, the Obama campaign should SET THE NEWS CYCLE IN MOTION with any item picked from the loooonnnggggg list of Republican scandals from the Bush administration. How many days between now and November 7th? Whatever, there's MORE THAN ENOUGH OUTRAGES FOR ONE-A-DAY. And just say, "Okay, this right here. This outrageous thing (whatever ... fill in the blank ... like I say, there's an endless supply). John McCain, do you support this? Do you think Americans support this? Why did you not oppose this? Do you repudiate this now?," etc. Just ... start ... hitting ... now.

The above does not stand in oppostion to "the politics of hope". The politics of principle and strength has to undergird and inform the politics of hope, or else it means next to nothing.

#2 - (see #1 above).

#3 - (see #1 above). GET ON THE OFFENSIVE. NOW. AND START PUNCHING. FIRST. Don't sit back on your hopeful ass and wait for everything to work out. START PUNCHING. NOW.

YouTube of the ad.

As I said at TAPPED earlier, that was one lame ad. As I watched it, I was expecting them to produce some half-ass, six-degrees connection between Obama and the gangs in question, through his community organizing, perhaps. Or maybe come up with an instance where he argued for for lenient treatment of violent gang members.

Instead, it's "he doesn't want to fry more of the ones that we've already gotten off the streets."

If this is the best they can do, they've got to work on their game a bit. The death penalty isn't nearly the inflammatory issue it was 12-15 years ago.

I suspect most Americans that see this, whether they're for the DP or against it, are going to just shrug their shoulders at this one.

I dunno, the whole "driver's licenses for illegal aliens" thing was apparently really damaging to Spitzer, and that's in a relatively liberal state. This issue apparently has some resonance.

Of course, the driver's license issue wasn't as damaging as the prostitution issue.

Floyd Brown is the obese slob who ran a sham organization called Citizens United that flogged the "Vince Foster was murdered" fairy tale for years when Clinton was president. This hideously vile creature, along with David Bossie (now a Fox News commentator), created much of the Clinton mock scandal mythology that still pollutes the political atmosphere. This rotund, smelly pile of human sewage, needs to be at least knee-capped and maybe castrated, just to prevent him from having any mutant offspring.

The media will amplify any Obama-attack commercial, over and over.

"...the games are beginning."

Kevin,
Where have you been?

Baback Odumba loves criminals!! I knew that already. These ads will be devastating. Nobody likes or trusts this man. He is clearly not smart.

And he's also a die hard Communist. America is focused on beating Communism, and will never elect this charlatan.

No one could have predicted this.

Hillary is running a Republican style campaign and Obama is doing fine. The sheen of newness wore off in mid-March and 2 "death of the campaign" scandals later he's still moving up up up in the national polls, while Hillary is moving down down down. Pennsylvania is a sideshow. Obama is the nominee and when it all comes together in November he will win in a Reaganesque landslide. Don't believe the talking heads on TV, they are so out of touch it's pathetic.

The new ad recounts the deaths of three Chicago residents in 2001 at the hands of criminal gangs. "That same year, a Chicago state senator named Barack Obama voted against expanding the death penalty for gang-related murders"

That wouldn't be the same Illinois where the Republican governor commuted every death sentence a couple of years later, would it?

The ads are running in NC? If that is a state they think they have to start fighting in now to win in November the Dems must be in pretty good shape.

I live in NC and I assume they would play them in NC due to the upcoming primary there in a couple weeks. I assume in November it'll go to McCain here unless there's some sort of landslide result like a 45-5 state margin.

Pie Hole, I would love to see the Democrats go on the offensive as you suggest. Something like this would be better orchestrated through 527s or other outside groups. But I doubt it will happen. Democrats have a tendency to try to be morally superior when it comes to campaigning. "Outsider" Dems like Obama even more so. There is not a chance in hell that the Dems will strike first with negative campaigning of this sort. They'd rather lose with honor, which is why they lose so often.

And OT, can we please get rid of that horrid ad with the pic of the guy with frosting on his face? That image just turns my stomach. It looks like an enticement for an especially disreputable porn site. Yikes!

Rob Mac -- to clarify, I'm not suggestive negative campaigning. Is it negative to note that under international treaties to which we are a signatory, that torture is illegal, which makes our president, ipso facto, a war criminal? No matter how thin you slice and dice the arguments? That's not negative campaigning, it's the unvarnished truth. And to ask Mr. Straight Talk Express why he supports, and is supported by, that criminal. Just draw the facts and ask the question. In that case and SO MANY OTHERS, that would not be negative campaigning, it would be just plain old campaigning, period. Drawing the distinctions.

And that's just one example.

I think these kinds of ads are pretty bad for us. I just watched it. I can't see how Kevin and other commenters think the ad won't be effective. To me it seems like an A+ in trying to win voters, as good as Hillary Clinton's "3 AM" ad.

I'm not saying I endorse it, of course, just that it will be persuasive.

Anyway, responding to the ad is pretty simple- Obama just has to say, "Look, being put in prison for your whole life is bad enough, and it may be worse than being executed. If the point is that I didn't try to expand the death penalty and that I'm therefore weak on crime, there's no point to make."

Hillary is running a Republican style campaign and Obama is doing fine.

More of this dribble. Just because your pussy hurts, Da5id, doesn't mean she is running a Retadican style campaign. Grow a pair, cheese wiz...

Why would the Republicans run ads in North Carolina, a state no Dem has a chance to win?

Flash back to 2005, VA Gubernatorial Race, hard core Republican Jerry Kilgore (aka Jerry Kill-More) hit Democratic winner Tim Kaine heavy and hard on the death penalty as Kaine professed that his Catholic faith made him personally against the death penalty and had been a court appointed defender in a handful of death penalty cases. The worst ad compared Tim Kaine to Hitler.

Well the ads backfired. Big time. Tim Kaine easily sailed to victory though sadly the rest of the Democratic statewide slate was narrowly defeated. Virginia no less, the state that is second only to Texas in executions!

So don't assume that the death penalty is a winning negative ad campaign anymore.

Sounds like an effective ad to me. Particularly for people who live in North Carolina. Ot anywhere else in the south.

There's a war on gangs?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC9j6Wfdq3o

That was a good ad. Very effective. Liberals want Willie Hortons on the street?

Tim Morris, Yes, the very same state. I think it's also known as the Land of Lincoln.

Call me crazy, but Ryan's commutations might have had something to do with the 13 or so death row inmates who were exonerated in recent Illinois history. From the late 80s through the moratorium Illinois' ratio of executions to exonerations was about 1:1. A reasonable person might conclude there was a problem there.

The other curious thing about this Floyd Brown ad is it references a vote by Obama in 2001. The IL death penalty moratorium was imposed in January of 2000. So, it's a little nonsensical to vote for expanding the death penalty after a moratorium on that very thing. I'm just a wild-eyed liberal, but I think that's some relavant context.

"That wouldn't be the same Illinois where the Republican governor commuted every death sentence a couple of years later, would it?"

Sorry Tim, not good enough.I have to state that the story begins much earlier ...

http://www.truthinjustice.org/jon-burge.htm

TAMPA - The burly man strode confidently from a Tampa courthouse last week, his lawyer placing a protective hand on his back as he passed the news cameras lying in wait.

Curious passers-by stopped and wondered about the guy with the shock of pure white hair smoothed perfectly back.
"Who's that?" someone asked.

Few know him here, and that's how he likes it. But back in Chicago, Jon Burge is big news. He's known as the police commander who, for 20 years, tortured suspects to make them confess.

The accusations are like something out of a wartime prison: electric shock and cattle prods; near suffocation with a typewriter bag; mock executions with a pistol ...

Sound familiar? Oh, there's more. Much more ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Burge

So I'm not surprised that this is showing in North Carolina, Republicans are great at oversimplifying to obscure facts.
And I don't want anyone to think I think they are all innocent. What should make anyone nauseous is that idea that in our nation, in this century another human being could be tortured into confession and then executed because of it.

BTW Republicans, you need to come up with a fresher tag line than "too extreme." You tried that last election, hanging that at the end of every Republican commercial next to a picture of Nancy Pelosi. Didn't work then and is even more tired now.