Join the new Google Group "Emails for Obama" to fuel the backlash and fight back against McCain's falsehoods! See the end of this diary for more.
In the aftermath of the fake troop-gate nonsense, I wrote a diary surmising that this sort of slimy attack strategy from John McCain would eventually turn into a backlash that would doom his campaign. It didn't happen then ... but it may be happening now.
Over at this post, HuffPo details the many media outlets that are taking McCain to task over his latest gutterball politics. I mean, with Mark Halperin starts seething with outrage about McCain's lies, we may be on to something.
And those links aren't the only ones.
Here's the WaPo today, blasting McCain's ridiculous campaign and ending with this:
John McCain is a serious man who promised to wage a serious campaign. Win or lose, will he be able to look back on this one with pride? Right now, it's hard to see how.
Here's the Kansas City Star:
Let's be serious for a moment: Does anyone beside the most fanatical John McCain supporter really think Barack Obama was calling Sarah Palin a pig Tuesday? He wasn't, and the McCain camp's call for an apology is absurd.
The Las Vegas Review Journal:
The McCain campaign is on the offensive, sensing momentum. But it risks hitting a wall if it gets bogged down in silliness....
"They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad because they know that it's catnip for the news media," Sen. Obama said. "This whole thing about lipstick, nobody actually believes that these folks are offended. Oh, we're shocked. Everybody knows it's cynical, everybody knows it's insincere."
He's right, and refreshingly so.
FactCheck.org jumps into the fray twice -- saying "Don't believe it" when reviewing McCain's false Sex-Ed attack and calling it "doubly false" at one point. And then this about the "Obama is a scary wolf!" ad -- blasting it for being "less than honest":
A McCain-Palin ad has FactCheck.org calling Obama's attacks on Palin "absolutely false" and "misleading." That's what we said, but it wasn't about Obama.
Our article criticized anonymous e-mail falsehoods and bogus claims about Palin posted around the Internet. We have no evidence that any of the claims we found to be false came from the Obama campaign.
The McCain-Palin ad also twists a quote from a Wall Street Journal columnist. He said the Obama camp had sent a team to Alaska to "dig into her record and background." The ad quotes the WSJ as saying the team was sent to "dig dirt."
Update, Sept. 10: Furthermore, the Obama campaign insists that no researchers have been sent to Alaska and that the Journal owes them a correction.
The Roanoke Times in rural Virginia blasts Palin's Bridge to Nowhere falsehoods. An editorial in The News Press in Fort Myers says McCain has "no shame in sinking to deplorable depths." A Tucson Citizen bloggers says the "new do-anything-to-become president John McCain has lost his sense of decency."
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
So, the backlash is finally upon us. Maybe it's because his internals stink, but McCain really overreached here. And the media is noticing.
What can we do? First, email an LTE today to your local paper. It's critical to win the local opinion war and influence it against McCain's gutter politics.
Second, contact the media and let them know your thoughts on McCain's politics.
And finally, some of us have formed an "Emails For Obama" google group to start a viral email effort to fuel the backlash with truthful emails defending Obama and fighting back against McCain's despicable campaign. Simple plan: we'll send out a quick email, you forward it on to your contacts. Double-points if you send it as a "reply all" to one of those Obama email smears you've received!
(Of course, all of this takes a backseat to VOLUNTEERING.)
The backlash is breaking. The maverick is losing his teflon. The narrative of a once-honorable-but-no-longer McCain is forming. Let's bring the point home.