Talk Back: Reactions to the VP Debate

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-16-2003
Talk Back: Reactions to the VP Debate
788
Thu, 10-02-2008 - 5:14pm

Hi everyone --


We wanted to get your reaction to the Vice Presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin. Did you watch? What did you think -- and who do you consider the winner? Were there any surprises? Tell us what you considered to be the highlights, the low points and everything in between.


 


Please note: This discussion will be featured on our homepage as well as our Election 2008 feature page (http://www.ivillage.com/0,,dkrjhqbk,00.html) and may elicit some "Guest" responses from our "Talkback" box tool on the page. Inappropriate responses that violate our Terms of Service will be removed.


Thanks for your input!

Caryn D. Stein
Director of Community
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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2006
Mon, 10-06-2008 - 9:36pm
No where in that article does it say that McCain has said he is going to ramp up personal ads on Obama.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Mon, 10-06-2008 - 9:41pm
No where in that article does it say that McCain has said he is going to ramp up personal ads on Obama.


Are you kidding? What part of "Sen. John McCain and his Republican allies are readying a newly aggressive assault on Sen. Barack Obama's character" seemed to you like they weren't specifically admitting to be about to ramp up personal attack ads?

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2006
Mon, 10-06-2008 - 9:44pm

That says new ads..not ramping up.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Mon, 10-06-2008 - 9:54pm
That says new ads..not ramping up.


Oh, please. You're sounding a little desperate. Here's one that doesn't give you the wiggle room:

The McCain campaign has now shifted virtually 100 percent of his national ad spending into negative ads attacking Obama, a detailed breakdown of his ad buys reveals.

By contrast, the Obama campaign is devoting less than half of its overall ad spending to ads attacking McCain. More than half of its spending is going to a spot that doesn't once mention his foe.

I asked Evan Tracey -- who tracks national ad spending for the Campaign Media Analysis Group -- to detail the amounts each campaign is spending on specific different spots. The idea was to gauge the precise degree of the McCain campaign's shift into negative mode amid his slide in the polls, and determine whether the Obama camp was following suit.

The results were striking, and suggest a sharper turn into negative campaigning as time runs low. For one thing, Tracey says, Obama is now outspending McCain by nearly two to one on the air -- Obama is spending $2.4 million per week, and McCain is spending $1.3 million weekly. But on to the breakdowns.

As of October 1 -- three days ago -- the McCain campaign's $1.3 million weekly is being broken down as follows, according to Tracey, who stressed that he himself wasn't labeling the ads either "positive" or "negative":
* Nearly half a million weekly is funding the ad called "Dome," which attacks "Obama and his liberal allies" in Congress for favoring "massive government."

* A shade more than half a million is funding the ad called "Mum," which attacks "Obama and his liberal allies" as "mum on the market crisis."

* Much of the remaining McCain money is funding a spot called "Overseas," which says that "Barack Obama and his liberal allies are to blame" for jobs going overseas. A negligible amount of the remainder is going to a positive spot, the "Original Mavericks" ad.

This is a dramatic shift from the period before he suspended his campaign. At that time, Tracey says, McCain was spending in the neighborhood of half his ad money on the positive "Original Mavericks" ad, and around half on the negative "Dome" spot.


And I think you've got your trite little platitude at the end wrong. Instead of "nothing to hide, nothing to fear," a more accurate assessment of how the McCain campaign will - apparently - be dealing with the Obama campaign is "nothing to hide....so we're gonna smear."

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-18-2006
Mon, 10-06-2008 - 9:59pm
Talk about desperate?

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2008
Mon, 10-06-2008 - 10:12pm
Translation: "I can't refute this, so I'll just try to impugn the source."

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-28-2004
Mon, 10-06-2008 - 11:38pm
Speaking of ads, heard several today from Obama urging people to get their absentee ballots mailed in. Gee, does he want people to vote before they change their mind or find out something new about him? Hmmm?
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2008
Mon, 10-06-2008 - 11:40pm
Nope - get em in before the Republicans decide to think of some other dirty tricks to pull before the election....
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-08-2008
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 12:47am
That about sums it up.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-08-2003
Tue, 10-07-2008 - 4:36am
No, it's in response to McCain sending out absentee ballots to Obama supporters in a couple of states. He tells them to return them to his headquarters, and they'll take care of them. I see a few problems with that dirty tactic!

 Rose

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