The McCain Automated "Robocalls"

Believe it or not, there is a new low in this year's Presidential race.

After the Wright controversy, the attempts to link Obama to terrorists, both foreign and domestic, the insults to his wife, his friends and even his patriotism, now McCain's campaign has gone high-tech. Sort of.

The McCain camp and some of his supporters have actually employed the use of very low-tech machines known as "Robocallers" to dial up people and deliver negative and sometimes very misleading automated messages. It has been reported that hundreds of thousands of such calls have been made recently, mainly because they are cheap and easy to produce. This has been suggested to be McCain's only viable response to the mind-boggling amount of media Obama has been able to put out given the record amount of money taken in from supporter's donations. Obama is heavily out spending McCain in all forms of media, however he has not taken it as far as to employ these cheap machines of ill will and discontent.

There are four primary messages, each referencing a falsehood regarding the Illinois Senator. One, the most widely played, is a sneering recount of Obama's relationship with William Ayers, an antiwar leader of the early 1970s. The caller says,

"You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the US Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."

Another message says,

“On the very day our elected leaders gathered in Washington to deal with the financial crisis, Barack Obama spent just 20 minutes with economic advisers, but hours at a celebrity Hollywood fund-raiser.”
However, these attempts to thwart Barack Obama's eventual win in the Presidential race are not new. It is ironic that McCain has chosen the robocaller route, as that was the very political tactic that many have attributed to his loss in the 2000 GOP primary, when George W. Bush effectively used the robocaller to attack McCain and his family in order to win the GOP nomination.

In an obvious effort to avoid discussing real issues facing our nation, like the Iraq War, education, health care reform, and the economy, McCain has taken his campaign into the mud by taking advantage of every opportunity to assail Obama's character. This is the strategy of the desperate candidate who knows his days are numbered and that the end is eminent.

In response to the calls, the Obama campaign on Friday added a link on its Web site to FightTheSmears.com, asking supporters to report robocalls.

Code Blue

Anemic.

That word best sums up McCain's campaign to date. The McCain camp is acutely aware that time is running out as evident in the Maverick's many poor attempts at humor in Tuesday night's debate in Nashville. With 27 days left in the race, the "Straight Talking Express" had better start doing exactly that. McCain came across as coarse and colicky and his desperation was palpable. You spoke, Mr. McCain, we listened.

He made several distinctions about his opponent that were false. With the debate focusing on the current economic situation, for example, McCain tried to drive the point home that Senator Obama will raise taxes for the average US citizen, stating that Obama had voted to raise taxes 94 times, which is absolutely false. More simple GOP fear mongering.

McCain suggested that his health care plan would put the consumer back into the driver's seat and he promised "to keep families in their homes, avoid foreclosures, save failing neighborhoods, stabilize the housing market and attack the roots of our financial crisis" but without the votes in Congress, neither seem very likely.

Truth is that even the most staunch Republicans, like Karl Rove, are beginning to accept the fate of John McCain and his failure to best Obama. The next four weeks are crucial for McCain and he must show that he is not as confused about his programs as he seems.

You spoke, Mr. McCain, we listened.