Republican Smear: Obama Responsible for Chicago Crime

This ad made by Floyd Brown suggests that Obama supports gang violence because he voted against the death penalty on gang-related murders. Does anyone see the flawed logic there? This ad preaches to the hate choir and the ignorant. I would say that already, the republicans have outdone themselves this year.

Floyd Brown Lacks Money to Attack Obama

Floyd's resume:

Mr. Brown, 47, a 6-foot-6 bear of a man is perhaps best known for his involvement with the Willie Horton television advertisement that helped sink Michael S. Dukakis’s candidacy in 1988. Mr. Brown has had much in his career to be delighted about as the source of scores of conservative assaults on Democrats that have earned him their lasting enmity.

He's got a gossipy website, the same old innuendo about his religion, his race (he's black, you know) and now he's got a story in the new york times. 

I stand in wonderment of these so-called religious people, who use religion to make judgements and cast stones.

But poor Floyd Brown doesn't have enough money to swiftboat Obama. That's because Americans aren't going to stand for these pathetic voices anymore. We've had enough.

The Obama campaign singled out Mr. Brown on Thursday as emblematic of the threat that independent groups on the right posed to him. On Friday, Mr. Obama, at a news conference in Jacksonville, Fla., again named Mr. Brown while defending his campaign’s rejection of public financing for the general election.

Yet if Mr. Brown’s struggles are any indication — he has so far failed to raise much money — it is not clear that Republicans will be able to repeat their successes in 2004, when independent groups like the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth had a significant role in undermining Senator John Kerry’s campaign.

“It’s all about reaching a tipping point,” Mr. Brown said. “Swift Boats achieved the tipping point. I was part of a team that reached the tipping point in 1988. In 1992, we didn’t reach it. We might not this time. But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to try.”

Obama Attack Ads in North Carolina

in pennsylvania, hillary had the strong base of older people and working class, both groups less inclined to vote for a black person, give her a boost.

in north carolina, obama's black voters and young voters and educated voters are strong.

cnn: Since the beginning of January, nearly 65,000 new voters between the ages of 18 and 24 have registered in the state as Democrats or unaffiliated voters. More than 67,000 new African-American voters have registered over the same period.

The metrics don't bode well for a Clinton victory.

"It would take a monumental event in next two weeks for that to happen," said Jerry Meek, chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party. "But can she shave an Obama victory to five or six points? Possibly."

African-Americans are expected to make up around 40 percent of the primary electorate, giving Obama a healthy starting point in his chase for a large share of the state's 115 pledged delegates.

Obama should capture votes in the Research Triangle, a thriving swath of counties in and around the Raleigh-Durham area filled with highly-educated tech workers and medical researchers.

North Carolina also happens to be sandwiched between two demographically similar states -- Virginia and South Carolina -- that already held nominating contests, exposing thousands of Tar Heels to campaign advertising and news coverage of two Obama blowout victories in January and February.

so how is hillary going to cut into obama's lead?
hmmmmm. republicans to the rescue!

time: An old right-wing attack dog has returned with a new target: Barack Obama.

Starting Tuesday, a group of conservative activists led by Floyd Brown, author of the famous Willie Horton ad used so effectively against Michael Dukakis in 1988, will begin a campaign to tar Obama as weak on crime and terrorism, a strategy that aims to upend Obama's relatively strong reputation among Republican voters.

"The campaign by Hillary Clinton has not been able to raise Obama's negatives," said Brown on Monday. "It is absolutely critical that Obama's negatives go up with Republicans."

Brown says the initial effort, a 60-second spot called "Victims" will be aired later this month in North Carolina and e-mailed to between 3 and 7 million conservatives this week, with a plea for more funding to further spread the message. "All of the efforts I have ever done in my life have been significantly funded," Brown claimed, though he declined to describe the size of the purchase. "This is going to be the most Internet-intensive effort for an ad debut ever."

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," an ominous female narrator intones. "So the question is, can a man so weak in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?"

Brown is funding the initial ad campaign through a political action committee called the National Campaign Fund, which had $14,027 in the bank at the end of March. Brown said he had established several other front groups to fund a long-range effort to erode Obama's support, including a second PAC, called The Legacy Committee, a 527 organization called Citizens for a Safe and Prosperous America and a so-called "social welfare" 501(c)4 nonprofit called the Policy Issues Institute.

john mccain, reportedly, has denounced the ads, set to run, for playing on racial antagonisms, according to npr.

In an e-mail to state GOP chairwoman Linda Daves, McCain said the advertisement was "offensive" and urged party leaders to withhold the ad.
"I don't know why they do it," McCain told reporters on his campaign bus Wednesday in Kentucky. "Obviously, I don't control them, but I'm making it very clear, as I have a couple of times in the past, that there's no place for that kind of campaigning, and the American people don't want it."
McCain said he hasn't seen the ad but it has been described to him, "and I hope that I don't see it."
The advertisement raises the specter of Obama's former pastor Jeremiah Wright, beginning with a photo of Obama and Wright together and a clip of Wright's contentious remarks about America.
"He's just too extreme for North Carolina," the narrator says in the 30-second spot.
Daves said the ad presents a question of patriotism and judgment.
"It is entirely appropriate for voters to evaluate candidates based on their past associations," she said.
The ad will begin running statewide on Monday, a week before the state's crucial May 6 primary.
GOP spokesman Brent Woodcox argued that despite the ad's overwhelming focus on Obama, the spot is targeted at Democratic gubernatorial candidates Richard Moore and Bev Perdue, who have both endorsed the Illinois senator.
"We have a great relation with the RNC and we fully support John McCain for president," Woodcox said. "But this is an ad about two North Carolina candidates for governor. The ad is going to run."
Asked about the ad during an appearance in New Albany, Ind., Obama said: "My understanding is that the Republican National Committee and John McCain have both said that the ad's inappropriate.