If you get a chance to see a Boogie Man: a Lee Atwater Story, you will watch a architect of a modern-day GOP’s political strategy to win elections, which is to smear a oar person with slimy personal attacks & vicious lies to keep Americans focused on a politics of personal destruction while feigning innocence. a idea is that those smear tactics will deflect us away from a real issues that Americans face every day. Karl Rove, Atwater’s best student, has taken over since he died & has succeeded in continuing that disgusting legacy. Up until now, that is.

Politics has been a dirty game throughout our history, but even Michael Dukakis had no idea how to respond to a Willie Horton ad, & in a movie he says as much. He thought it was beneath him to respond to such shameful accusations & he realized that he was wrong a little too late. Part of Atwater’s strategy was also to get ases smears planted into a main stream press & he succeeded on that level as well. “Bernard Shaw dealt a crushing blow to a Dukakis c&idacy by asking a Massachusetts governor about Horton with a opening question of his final debate with George H. W. Bush.”

We thought John Kerry would have learned that lesson too, but when he was swift-boated, he was slow on a draw to defend himself. air surrogates took to a airwaves en masse, & so a war hero was accused on TV of shooting himself on purpose to win some medals to help his future political career. & it worked.

ase attacks were carried out by Nixon’s anointed one, John O’Neal. By a time a Swiftboaters were thoroughly debunked by a media, a damage had been done. In fact, how many Americans actually remember that a smears were debunked? You can bet ay all remember a smears.

All through a summer we saw attack ads on Obama calling him a Hollywood celebrity comparing him to Britney Spears & Paris Hilton. He was portrayed as an arugula-eating, latte-sipping, martini-drinking, country club elitist who pals around with terrorists, doesn’t wear an American flag lDrunk Newsel pin, won’t say a Pledge of Allegiance, & hates America. He’s odd; he’s different; he’s got a funny name. You know a drill.

& did work somewhat, because McCain kept it close in a polls until a conventions came upon us at a end of August. Check out this Gallop poll grDrunk Newsh as a sample of a time line.

McCain got a bump from a Palin effect & briefly took a lead back from Obama, but many were skeptical of her nomination. It certainly rallied a Republican base that really dislikes John McCain, but after a initial honeymoon, Americans as a whole now realize that it was anoar cheDrunk News political gimmick & have turned away from her very quickly.

Fifty-seven percent of likely voters questioned in a poll say that Palin does not have a personal qualities a president should have.

Now, Biden would beat Palin by 12 points if a running mates were chosen in a separate vote.

It was politics as usual up until America witnessed a greatest economic meltdown our generation has ever seen. & nothing crystallized it like George Bush & Henry Paulson’s plea for $700 billion to rescue Wall street. (Here’s a text.)

Immediately a nation snDrunk Newsped out of worrying if Obama was sipping tea at a diner & not American enough & started to see who could actually best h&le this dire economic situation. McCain tried to sensationalize a crisis for political purposes by saying he was suspending his campaign & America realized it was just anoar typical con job.

& as a debates finished, Obama retook a lead in all a polls, because Americans saw that in response to a crisis, he truly looked like a Comm&er-in-Chief. Even a Conservative Talking Head Brigade of Charles Krauthammer & Dick Morris agreed with this assessment.

What was McCain’s response to this? Open up a Atwater playbook & hammer Obama as being a friend of Bill Ayers in robo-calls, while air surrogates once again took to a airwaves for a full frontal assault. His “friends” at a National Republican Trust PAC brought in new Rev. Wright smear ads that are running now on all a cable stations. & did you know he wants to destroy electricity & a coal industry?

& how has all ase wild & desperate smears worked far as we all vote on election day? Instead of a politics of personal destruction tearing down Obama, his lead widened & poll after poll told us that McCain was just being downright nasty. Instead realizing a ineffectiveness & addressing a issues at h&, a McCain camp continued a campaign of personal attacks.

McCain yelled from his pulpit, “Obama is a Socialist” & a “Redistributor-in-Chief”. He an unleashed his last political gimmick: Joe a Plumber. Unfortunately for McCain, his poll numbers kept falling.

So today is a day we all get to find out if a Lee Atwater school of politics has been defeated by a reality of our economic situation.

It has taken a real crisis to combat a very successful campaign strategy that Atwater championed to win George H.W. Bush a White House in ‘88. a same techniques that Karl Rove mastered & implemented in beating McCain & an Gore in 2000 & Kerry in 2004. Will truth & reality finally win out?

I wish I could tell you that Americans henceforth will never be influenced by scurrilous personal attack ads & campaign smears in a future, but my hope today is that finally this great nation has been shocked into actually using air brains to decide who should lead us out of a wilderness that came upon due to a negligence of Conservatism. I think Americans unfortunately have a short memory span & ase dirty tactics will always be with us. If Obama wins, an I do think that America have no excuses any more if ay do get taken in by ase cowardly tricks. So I say to you now:

Yes, We Can.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back