onegoodmove

Man - I can think of at least one right-wing troll who'll ejaculate on his keyboard when he sees this.

I don't know how this should be handled - I guess one would have go back and see what didn't work for Dukakis - I doubt that ignoring it will help. The problem, of course, is that an adequate response to the basic assumption in this ad won't work. (The basic assumption: fear of death will deter gang violence. By that logic the entire vendetta dynamic of gang violence would be self-extinguishing. It isn't.)

The intellectual bankruptcy of the GOP and total failure of conservatism in every area of government over the past many years guarantees that this will be an exceptionally dirty election. What accomplishments can the GOP boast of? None - absolutely none.

I can't tell which bill it is Obama voted against but I'm going to assume it was probably some sort of bill allowing minors to be given the death penalty or something draconian of that nature.

Either way, if we were a nation of adults he could approach it by saying we already lock up more people than China, Iran, North Korea and the entire EU combined and that it's important we find better ways to deal with our crime problem then just euthanizing everyone...

Unfortunately we don't seem to live in that kind of country so I think he will most likely find some justification for why the bill was bad and reiterate how excited he is to kill all evil-doers so that us good folks can go about our shopping without fear of some urban gang member shooting up our mall.

On a side note: I had more guns pointed at me while living in Oregon by white men then while I've been in NYC the past ten years. All this fear of "urban crime" is pure racism.

I had more guns pointed at me while living in Oregon by white men

They do love their guns. I have a friend who asked me to give him a character reference for his application for a concealed weapon permit. I declined. He got his gun, but at least now if there is an accident, more likely than a legitimate use, I won't have to wrangle with my conscience.

Man - I can think of at least one right-wing troll who'll ejaculate on his keyboard when he sees this.

LOL.

So: 1.) I haven't been able to find the legislation they are referring to. Presumably, if these crimes were not covered by the current murder laws, expanding the 'death penalty to gang members' for murder means the juvenile death penalty. That should be the first place to begin: We don't execute minors; it is barbaric.

(2.) Obama can point to the fact that the implied message, that violence deters terrorism, is false. More generally, Republican terrorism policies have failed. We are less safe now than we were before 9/11, and the Bush policy of invading Iraq has made things worse. There are still massive terrorist networks on the border between Afganistan and Pakistan and the U.S. government has done nothing, nothing. (Obama has mentioned this before).

(3.) This is part of many attacks--which McCain is, actually, denouncing--on Barack. See here for another about Rev. Wright.

(4.) Attacks like this will face either Clinton or Obama. We should also ask: Would counter-smear be effective, and if so, what kind of counter smear? If we are trying to deflect the impression that Democrats are weak on terrorism, and this is a big issue with American voters, then it likely won't help if we attack McCain along a different non-national security-related line. And we can't attack him on the national security line either.

More generally: I take it for granted that Kerry did pitifully on this topic--we, the democrats, needs a better overall strategy on this, not just Barack.

This may seem small, but did anyone else notice the typo in the ad print? "dealth penalty"? Was this ad rushed to the air so quickly no one noticed...? I saw it once and immediately stopped listening. As someone who's tired of the incredible negativity from the Clinton campaign (and an undecided voter as of yet), I'm glad I stopped listening.

I am liking Chris Matthews more, though.

Incidentally, for some REALLY vicious attack ads on some dudes I very much admire, see Here and Here.

Memo to republicans, this election will not be won or lost on the death penalty.

Not sure what the response is, I think a good law and order policy might be the best move, whil pointing out that the war has taken money from first responders. State gaurd units are not availiable, and there are less police and less fire then there was ten years ago.

Also he might remind everyone that if gang bangers were afraid of dieing, they would work at McDonalds.

My guess is also that the bill would have included executions of the under aged.

He should address this ad immediately but give it very little attention. A simple exact restatement of his position on the death penalty would suffice.

For example he could start by speaking about politics of fear, this is nothing new, my position on the death penalty has not changed and it is on the record. Then quote his book ""While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes--mass murder, the rape and murder of a child--so heinous that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment. On the other hand, the way capital cases were tried in Illinois at the time was so rife with error, questionable police tactics, racial bias, and shoddy lawyering, that 13 death row inmates had been exonerated." He could end with something about how he still feels that not applying the death penalty in certain cases is preferable to state executions of innocents. Then giving the media some examples of cases where individuals were proven innocent post execution. Maybe he could even have someone like Alton Logan or Jerry Miller speak about their 20+ years spent in prison after being falsely convicted.

If he is pressed on this matter in future interviews he should keep refering reporters to the names of innocent individuals who have spents decades in jail or to the families of those who died in prison or were executed. There are plenty of them.

This country is so fucked

The advice I would give Obama on this issue would be to respond in the same manner as he did to the Rev. Wright controversy, by using it as an opportunity to make known in depth his views on a very complicated issue. With more Americans dying each year to gang violence than in Iraq, it should be an issue at the forefront of the election. It has also been demonstrated that rehabilitation and exit strategies for violent gang members are much more effective measures of deterrence than adding to the violence. I think this is a prime opportunity to exploit the flawed thinking behind this ad and exploit it to attack the GOP on the basis that is has seriously disconnected from the ground level realities that exist within the country today. For more information on one organization seeking to rehabilitate violent gang members, visit http://www.homeboy-industries.org/ The production company I work for is currently producing a documentary featuring former gang members, and the most common attitude is that these kids are all looking for a way out, but their environment makes it impossible. Obama could also use the situation to highlight how the economic woes of the nations poorest (contributed to by Republican rule) should not be met with violence, but with compassion.

BTW

Has anybody else noticed how fucked up the world is right now? famine http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/soaring-food-prices more famine http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/23/sams-club-costco-limit-ri_n_98340.html environmental disasters looming http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/europe/23coal.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin The start of the next great depression. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c4e0c530-10b1-11dd-b8d6-0000779fd2ac,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fc4e0c530-10b1-11dd-b8d6-0000779fd2ac.html%3Fnclick_check%3D1&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fbusiness%2F&nclick_check=1

Oh and war and disease are around here somewhere I am sure.

And the GOP's primary concern is killing 15 year old in Chicago and the relative patriotism of Obama's pastor?

Ok its starting to freak me out now.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/23/japan-is-almost-out.html

I think they should respond asap, with facts and get them out there. This I guess is the start of the response. from there website.

opinion norm?

http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/04/21/fact_check_on_willie_hortonsty.php

ps i am anti death penalty so i don't like it that both of them, those supposed christians are both on the record so pro death penalty.

I think he responds, like he did to the Wright 'controversy' by pushing Americans on the lingering racial inequalities in our country. The public is more in tune with this issue than the hyper pc media will allow, and deservedly so. Inner-city violence will not be solved by the state-sponsored killing of even more young black men. Do many Americans fear young black men? Yes. Should Obama pander to these fears. Absolutely not.

I agree with those who have already stated that he should respond to this in the same way he did to rev wright. only much faster. He should respond immediately, so as to halt his losses, and use this as an opportunity to show why he position on this issue is so much more civilized than that of those who think the solution to crime is to just kill all the criminals.

I have to respectfully disagree with those who are advocating that Obama address this ad in a way that would similar to how he handled the Rev. Wright situation. I say this not because I think this is an unimportant subject, but because that approach really won’t work here.

Consider who this ad targets. It’s pitching an argument to those folks who, like our president, see the world dividing into tidy little binaries of good and evil, strong and weak. Issuing a 30 minute response to a 30 second ad is not going to win over the beer drinking, gut-thinking Americans who see no difference between international terrorists and tragically misguided and (socially/economically) abandoned urban youths. They just want to know if their candidate is tough enough to step up and kill the bad guys—however we’re defining them at the moment—when the time comes. This sort of sentiment, in fact, is what we see Hillary appealing to when she talks about nuclear retaliation against Iran.

Mark Twain once wrote, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” So, while I might personally like to see this ad met with a reasoned, nuanced response, I know Obama simply doesn’t have the time for that. Instead, he needs to jump on this and call bullshit in short, simple, forceful terms. He needs to aim for the heart by saying things like, “I voted against that legislation because I think there are better ways of dealing with troubled, inner-city youth than, as my opponents are suggesting, simply executing them all.” Then he could launch into a discussion about revitalizing our urban centers to eliminate the circumstances that lead to gang violence and then talk about giving our police the tools they need and pay they deserve to do their jobs.

Moreover, he can then hit back at the Republicans by saying this is just another instance of the type of confused thinking that has us fighting the wrong enemy in the wrong country on the wrong front in the war on terror. He can talk tough about killin’ him some terrorists, but he needs to really hammer the ignorance of those who think that his response to gang violence has anything to do with his ability to protect this country from the forces of global terrorism.

And for those who are interested, here’s the Obama campaign’s nuanced & detailed deconstruction of that ad.

Texas executes more people than any other state and how is that working out for them? I´ll bet there are no murders and no gangs in Texas. California has the death penalty and LA has plenty of gang violence. Recent dubious studies notwithstanding, it doesn´t work as a deterrent. We should pattern our society on those countries that have outlawed capital punishment, most of which have lower levels of violence than the US.

The death penalty is sort of a deal-breaker as far as I am concerned: If you are for it, you are hopelessly out-of-touch with modern civilization. Period.

P.S. The Chicago Sun-Times is just about the biggest piece of shit newspaper I´ve ever read. Period.

Did anyone else see this at the bottom of the linked Obama fact check page?

"Obama Sponsored Bill To Extend Death Penalty For 1st Degree Murder Within 500FT Of A Place Of Worship. Obama was the chief co-sponsor of bill providing that a person who commits first degree murder using a firearm in or within 500 feet of a church, synagogue or other place of worship is eligible for the death penalty"

Apparantly it's more wrong to kill someone if you're within some arbitrary distance from a church? Am I just reading this totally wrong or is this really weird?

Jeramiah,

Nice post and excellent response.

Nuance works on those who like facts. This ad is pure emotion lacking logic.

Good quote worth reiterating:“I voted against that legislation because there are better ways of dealing with troubled, inner-city youth than, as my opponents are suggesting, simply executing them all.”

Or, I would like to see an ad where a man in SWAT tacgear is on a pop up target course with an M4 and Kimber Custom II .45 blowing them down methodically as they pop up. The last with a pretty female hostage and perfect bullseye. The pistol re-holsters and it is Barrack in a perfect Clint Eastwood pose surrounded by Chicago's Police.

"Soft on crime?"

Kidding of course, but would be funny in a political ad.

tag line? "Sorry, I don't bowl or wear pant-suits."

===

aside: I've never understood why 'liberals' or 'progressives' don't like guns. Can someone honestly explain it to me?

Norm, I know three men who's lives were saved by concealed carry. One post-Katrina. He coords. LA's hillside fire response and was down in N.O. to rescue animals. of course, I go to cop parties.

have to share: these Google ads [under the CCN story about Verhoven's Jesus book]. Reads like a sonet.

Ads by Google

2008: God's Final Witness Unprecedented destruction will come in 2008, leading to America's fall. www.the-end.com

Expelled – Ben Stein Why is Big Science suppressing the evidence of Intelligent Design? www.Expelledthemovie.com

First Christian Church Pomona, CA A loving place to be on Easter. www.fccpomona.org

lol *8)

Obama should respond immediately by framing this issue around the death penalty. Is it effective? Are innocent people being put to death? etc. For while a majority of Americans support the death penalty ...

"...nearly 40 percent [of Americans] think their moral beliefs would disqualify them from serving on a jury in a capital trial."

[...]

"... 39 percent [...] said they thought they would be disqualified from serving in a jury in a capital murder case because of their moral beliefs."

EVERYONE SAY IT TOGETHER: Being for the death penalty doesn't make you "tough on crime" ... it just means you're morals are stuck in the bronze age.

RedSeven,

Not to get too off topic from the original post but did you see Sam's Club and Costco are rationing rice as well - in the U.S. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/23/sams-club-costco-limit-rin98340.html

Yup, we're headed toward a good ol' fashioned population crisis with the added threat of ecological disasters. But the Republicans are still more concerned with immigrants, god and "islamofascism". And the Democrats in office are more concerned with not being seen as weak on defense and placating to the "middle" while our candidates do shots at the bowling alley.

All the while the oil industry is searching the melting Arctic for new oil reserves to drill and the ownership os these oil reserves is being argued over by Russia, Canada, the US and a few Scandinavian nations... http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20080301faessay87206/scott-g-borgerson/arctic-meltdown.html

Consider who this ad targets. It’s pitching an argument to those folks who, like our president, see the world dividing into tidy little binaries of good and evil, strong and weak. Issuing a 30 minute response to a 30 second ad is not going to win over the beer drinking, gut-thinking Americans who see no difference between international terrorists and tragically misguided and (socially/economically) abandoned urban youths. They just want to know if their candidate is tough enough to step up and kill the bad guys—however we’re defining them at the moment—when the time comes. This sort of sentiment, in fact, is what we see Hillary appealing to when she talks about nuclear retaliation against Iran. Mark Twain once wrote, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

Jeremiah is definitely on the right track - A careful, 30 minute, nuanced response will have the kind of person to whom this ad appeals rolling his/her eyes and saying, 'Oh great, a black John Kerry. What a wimp.' I'm not yet certain that the best one-liner response has yet been offered here, but save the logic and the evidence for the web site and the Charlie Rose show. A response to this kind of crap needs to be something pithy and memorable.

This is easy. The death penalty doesn't work to deter crime. Period. This isn't that hard of an ad to counter, but Obama will have to do it head on and not take the high road.

Next.

It is always good to talk up the 'intelligence of the American people' when putting the other side down. One way to do this is for Obama to say "If you think that cultivating a 'tough guy' image with respect to urban crime is an effective way to fight terrorism, then you had better go find Rudy Guiliani. But you should know that the American people already proved to be too smart to fall for that line."

The "they'll say bad things about him" reason for obama to not be nominated.

Ads like this work on certain people, and can be made about any politician. Those people who listen to garbage like this are the 28% who are still enjoying the bush years.

If Rev. Wright taught democrats anything, it should be that Obama can handle garbage like this. His numbers increased after he addressed Wright, which made me feel good about america.

If I were helping write Obama's speeches, put in a line like this

"there are these ads about a vote in IL and the death penalty, which is misrepresentative of the issue... Over 50 gang related deaths have been reported in Chicago in the last 2 weeks. Most of these gang killings are purpitrated by minors - kids under 18. I don't think the answer to gang violence is killing more of these children with the death penalty. We need to invest in these kids and their futures. They join these gangs because they see a failed economy waiting for them. College graduates are making less and less each year while the costs of living keep going up - food prices are soaring while minimum wage .... (go into education and economic policies)"

"You're basically fucked. Give up and become Clinton's VP."

I think the right response to this would be by saying something like "gang violence is a serious problem that we need to work to solve, and death sentence is not the solution." And then try to turn it around by pointing out how the current republican regime have ignored the problem or made it worse (have they? I don't know, but my guess is yes).

How should he respond? The way he's responded to all of this nonsense so far: calmly, deliberately, head-on and with the truth.

The assertion that any of the candidates is pro-crime or pro-gang is, of course, laughable.

That the GOP comes out with this crap so predictably is becoming a cliche and even conservatives are getting tired of it. The practice itself is becoming a target:

"John McCain, who was once denied the nomination of his party because his own party insinuated that he'd fathered a black child, is now being elevated by those same con-artists accusing me of being soft on crime. Let's ask John McCain how he feels about this ad..."

"John McCain, who by his own admission knows nothing about economics, who's economics advisor is the Senator who's dismantling of banking regulations have lead us to the Mortgage Meltdown, would rather not talk about his plans to restore our currency, save our banking industry and bring jobs back to America. He'd rather distort my record on crime. HERE is my record on crime...."

"After trying to smear me by association with people I have dismissed and people whom I have not courted, the GOP would rather not have you listen to me ask John McCain about reverend Haggee and other fanatical whack-jobs whom he HAS courted and whom he continues to support while they continue to attack Catholics and blame New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina and the United States of America for 9/11. And so they cook up this diversion...."

What? Do we really think they haven't cooked up a whole library of this crap to throw at Hillary?

And why, pray tell, are they trying to derail Obama's campaign before he gets the nomination? They still consider Hillary to be more easily beaten than Obama and with very good reason. She's shown herself to be either a very bad lier or completely delusional about her contribution to the Irish peace, sniper fire in Bosnia, supporting NAAFTA when she's talking to Wall Street and knocking it when she's talking to Main Street (as if no one can compare the video and show it back-to-back from the day she gets the nomination until November) and her silly suggestion that the duties of First Lady somehow form a foundation for the office of President.

The GOP know very well who they'd rather run against which is why Schaife and Coulter and Hannity and ABC are all trying to bring Obama down and are saving Hillary for later.

fp

Spelling before coffeee. Always a bhad idea.

fp

You think Phill Gramm led to the mortgage crisis? Talk about buying into illogical soundbites.

Glad to know that we have you all--arbiters of truth, counterers of neanderthalism--to sort the unquestionable truth out of every issue. It has been particularly rewarding for me, as a finance professional, to observe some of you become experts on all things mortgage bond related.

I'm scared... will the old frail white guy protect me?

Not soundbites but a lengthy interview with Michael Greenberger:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89338743

Listen to the interview and you'll discover that Gramm, when Chairman of the Senate finance Committee, did away with depression-era regulations and paved the way for the current credit default-crisis threatening the entire banking industry.

Wright and Ayers are soundbites turned into scandals; McCain's profound ignorance and choice of advisors, is a disaster waiting to happen that the media is ignoring.

I'm quite aware of the regulatory environment. The crisis you speak of was sparked by a bubble-like rise in housing's value. Homeowners are certainly not defaulting because banks are losing on CDOs; they're defaulting because prices are falling.

That may lie beyond the scope of the NPR interview. Goolsbee, et al, understand this all quite well, but the populism is easier to sell.

I "like" how no one present at that Hardball taping even raised the point that death penalty is wrong to begin with. All they seemed to be concerned about is political drama. The solution to gang violence isn't in expanding the death penalty - clearly it's not a deterrent now, so executing more people won't be a stronger deterrent. It's possible to end gang violence if we eliminate the reasons people join gangs in the first place. Do something about poverty, lack of education, welfare, health care, lack of jobs, etc.

Please don't suggest that I'm ill-informed and then refuse to listen to my corroborating material while you dismiss it.

We've been through housing bubbles before. This one is much more dangerous and vastly more far-reaching because of the deregulation of the secondary mortgage market and changes to investment banking regulations.

The proliferation of bad loans was encouraged expansion in the sub-prime market, but that market would not have grown so explosively if there had been no way for banks to shift those risky loans to the secondary market as they have always done with standard, well-secured 10 and 20%-down mortgages.

The jiggering of banking and investment regulations allowed highly questionable sub-prime loans to be sold into the secondary market... and then used as vehicles for very risky derivatives by Wall Street investment banks in what has become an economic house of cards. In fact, since savings banks are now allowed to take the same kind of risky gambles that investment banks do, the problem has spread even further.

This goes far, far beyond the phenomenon of home-owners walking away from sub-prime mortgages on over-valued property in which they have none of their own cash invested. But the great majority of those worthless mortgages would not have been written without a secondary market to absorb the risk. Deregulation allowed for that market, for the bogus insurance of CDO's and for the speculative market they created and which brought down Bear Stearns.

fp

k - it does look like the Obama camp is on this; thanks for the link.

Obama will have to respond to this ad, and as suggested above, the main response will have to be something quick and direct. He'll have to keep the larger explanation in his arsenal for the right environment.

I am so. tired. of the fear. card.

gag!

P.S. media terrorism

Gregory,

FDP kinda pwnd ya.

Sure, if the bubble had never burst, the deregulated secondary mortgage market may have survived, but for how long?

At any major hickup, this sort of thing was bound to happen.

+++

aside:

After all the Libbys, law-breaking bankers and their ilk have walked through courts scott free, why am I amazed that the Justice Department wants to make an example of Wesley Snipes?

The ad is simple and direct. Obama's response should be simple and direct:

"I voted against a bill that would allow us to execute minors. What kind of nation are we if we want to kill our own children? Does Senator McCain want to execute children?"

He needs to reframe the ad's point in simple, clear, moral terms. And get us to think about what kind of people we are.

The debate about the ad was fairly good, but Chris Matthews was wrong to be so worried about it or talk about how harsh it is. There will be a lot more heavy racially coded ads than this one. In a year long presidential race, every white person in a America will have their chance to connect the dots between Obama to the black panthers, welfare queens, gangs, rap music etc. That will happen whether the campaign is dirty or not. All three candidates are interesting enough to get hammered with negative insinuations, but this sort of ad about legislative votes is about as harmless as they come.

In fact was relieved when I saw the ad. It's about an actual vote rather that idiotic discussions about personal acquaintences, flag pins, and what whites "cling" to.

"Obama's response should be simple and direct"

I don't think so. McCain didn't put out the ad. By responding to it yourself when you don't have to it validates the attackers. By hitting back at McCain you launch an unprovoked attack. If the issue comes up in a debate or interview he should have a good explaination, but it doesn't have to become an attack on McCain.

People forget that Kerry attacked Bush a whole lot--in is own voice. Bush used surrogates most of the time. The result was that people were about as dissatisfied with Bush as before but they didn't see anything positive in Kerry to vote for.

To answer your question, Norm - I'd ignore it.

The result was that people were about as dissatisfied with Bush as before but they didn't see anything positive in Kerry to vote for.

Too bad Kerry didn't have a VP to make attacks.

Sounds like a VP is what Obama needs now.

Damn what a painfully silly ad. Did anybody notice the "dealth" penalty? :D

I mean there they go discuss about if this ad was a racialy painted one or not. But none of the people even seemed to be interested in the question if the death penalty is a working deterrend for murder?! Or if that were how Obama felt about the death penalty.

Man here in Europe almost everyone would think that the makers of the ad were looneys. ^^

Greetz from old Europe. ^^