Rove Says McCain Ads Go Too Far

When Karl Rove says a campaign ad has gone too far, one must ask just what is the world coming to? On Fox yesterday, he said, “McCain has gone in his ads one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100-percent-truth test. Both campaigns ought to be careful about... there ought to be an adult who says: ‘Do we really need to go that far in this ad? Don’t we make our point and get broader acceptance and deny the opposition an opportunity to attack us if we don’t include that one little last tweak in the ad’?”

The ad that set this off claimed that Senator Obama voted to have sex education taught in kindergartens when he was in the Illinois state senate. This fabrication was too much to be believable, and it opened the McCain camp up to words like “liar” and “dishonest.”

Politics is a contact sport, and it shouldn’t be a surprise that campaigns often bend the truth to fit their narrative. What the McCain camp did, though, was come out with something that was demonstrably untrue. In politics, that only serves to undermine one’s own reputation. For someone who’s believed to be a “straight talker,” putting out a fib-laden ad is doubly damaging.

The Obama campaign hasn’t done too badly out of the exchange, attacking Mr. McCain’s greatest strength (his perceived integrity) and making the attack stick. What is less attractive is the accusation that Mr. McCain is out of touch because he doesn’t use e-mails.

All of this, however, is the result of “character” politics, the mistaken belief that a man’s character is vital to his success in political office. This is demonstrably incorrect; Winston Churchill was something of an ass but it hardly mattered. The policies and ideology matter more than character. Of course, to run a campaign on ideas went out of fashion some years ago. It takes too much intellectual work on both the part of the candidates and the electorate, to say nothing of the media. It seems Mr. Rove was right, but it isn’t going to change either.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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