Campaign Advertisements in the 2008

Campaign Advertisements In the 2008 historic presidential race, Barack Obama has repeatedly accused John McCain of running a completely negative campaign. Obama argued that the issues are too important for the "misleading mail and TV ads" and other negative tactics he attributes to our campaign. However, he made no mention of his own campaign's conduct.

According to Jones (2008), Obama ran "the most negative campaign in recent memory." In the Atlantic, she writes that Obama ran more negative ads than any candidate in history, including an advertising statement in which one of his supporters linked Senator McCain to the segregationist policies of George Wallace and the murder of four little girls. Jones writes that while Obama said he detests negative advertisements, his campaign is filled withnegative, false and misleading ads against John McCain.

According to figures from Campaign Media Analysis Group, in the final stretch of this campaign -- from September 12 to October 18 -- Barack Obama ran 119,101 negative ads costing more than $65 million," wrote Jones. "For that time period, the Obama campaign spent nearly $30 million more than the McCain-Palin campaign on negative ads. That $30 million represents 38,000 negative ads. The breakdown is even more staggering in the period from October 12 to 18.

In that seven-day period, Barack Obama spent over $22 million for more than 37,000 negative ads -- that's more than twice the amount spent on positive ads and almost three times the amount that the McCain-Palin campaign spent on such ads." However, there is no denying that McCain's campaign was very negative.

Obama and McCain clashed sharply in presidential campaigns and debates, as McCain tried to convince people that his opponent was insensitive to "Joe the Plumber" and too willing to associate himself with unsavory influences, while Obama charged that McCain was waging an ugly, divisive campaign. McCain was, in the eyes of many, the aggressor, insisting that the average guy -- the plumber -- would pay more taxes under Obama. "And, McCain said, Obama was reluctant to repudiate an inflammatory statement by Rep.

John Lewis, D-Ga., or voter registration tactics of community group Acorn," according to Lightman. Obama also used negative campaign methods to fight back against McCain but his methods appeared to be more gentle and more focused on calling attention to the fact that McCain was running an ugly and inappropriate campaign. Obama also repeatedly charged that McCain would simply continue the "failed" economic policies of President Bush. "Senator Obama, I am not President Bush," said an annoyed McCain during one debate (Lightman, 2000).

"If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago." One hundred percent of your ads, John.. 100% of them have been negative," he said (Lightman, 200*0. That's not true," McCain replied. "A hundred.. It absolutely is true," Obama insisted. Perhaps this is because all is fair in politics.

Analysts marveled at the brilliance of the Obama presidential campaign, heralding the level of grass-roots mobilization involved, his record- breaking fund-raising, and his effective advertising campaigns, which some might have said were inappropriate but most saw as simply politics (Graham, 2008). Barack Obama and John McCain voiced very different opinions during the 2008 Presidential campaign over taxes, the Iraq War, and how to fix the ailing economy (Fouthy, 2008).

Things got inappropriate at times, with McCain running ads comparing Obama to celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and raising questions about his relationship with a 1960s-era radical, William Ayers. Obama's campaign labeled the 72-year-old McCain "erratic" and ran campaign ads that poked fun at his economic views. However, on Election Night, McCain paid tribute to Obama's historic.