How badly are the personal attacks on Sarah Palin by left-wing mouthpieces hurting Barack Obama? A widely circulated YouTube video has liberal talker John Stewart trying to kill two birds with one stone, using unrelated comments by Bill O’Reilly about Bristol Palin and Jamie Lynn Spears (sister of
As the host of the O’Reilly Factor himself says, “Every time the far left attacks Palin personally, it’s another vote for McCain.” Vile smear merchant Bill Maher has joined the choir in unintentionally helping McCain with vicious innuendo about Palin’s teenage daughter.
There is no question Palin has benefited from a sympathy vote by those rallying around the victim of the politics of personal destruction.
If Laura Ingraham compared Obama’s (single) mother to Brittany or Jamie Lynn Spears, this would help Obama. If Sean Hannity claimed that Barack’s blunder with George Stephanopoulos was proof of the Democrat’s radical Islam, this would backfire and hurt McCain. (In an interview, Obama used the term “My Muslim faith.”)
Four years ago John Kerry led George Bush in all the polls. Then Bush got his gift horse: Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911 was a mocumentary filled with half-truths, exaggerations and just plain lies about President Bush. This pushed the undecided to rally around Bush.
Ultimately the race will still be decided by who wins the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates. But unless Palin is annihilated by Joe Biden or a true “October Surprise” is uncovered, the relentless personal attacks on Palin and her family will aid the Republican ticket in November.
Right wingers extremists like Michael Savage, Anne Coulter, and Pat Robertson need to be cautious in their bomb-throwing and not return the favor of the far-left. So far they have been typically partisan, but sans the vitriol of Olbermann, Stewart, and Maher.
If the medium is truly the message, then McCain should have one request of the far-left: keep talking.
Grandmaster sports handicapper Joe Duffy is also the top political handicapper. Well ahead of the Rasmussen and USA Today/Gallup polls, Duffy last week declared that McCain had taken over as the favorite. Keep track of the political betting odds at the site Duffy is CEO OffshoreInsiders.com
