Shading -- or ignoring -- truth on the campaign trail
Political innocents may wonder why a candidate such as McCain, whose campaign is premised on 'straight talk' -- and to a lesser extent Obama -- have veered from the truth. Because it works.
For weeks, John McCain and his campaign have made claims contradicted by reality: Barack Obama favors sex education for kindergartners and insulted Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin; Palin sold her state plane on EBay and turned down federal money for the "bridge to nowhere."
Obama has argued that McCain doesn't understand voter concern about the foundering economy and -- attention, Michigan voters -- has refused to support loan guarantees for the auto industry.
If any of those statements rings true, then a campaign adage has proved itself again: Repeat something often enough, and it becomes real, even when it isn't.
Political innocents may wonder why a candidate like McCain, whose campaign is premised on what he calls "straight talk" -- and to a lesser extent Obama -- have veered from the flat truth.
The answer is simple: because it works.
Both major party candidates for president vowed to run a different kind of campaign, implicitly promising a break from the spin-fests that past contests had become. But the close race and the tumultuous media environment in which McCain and Obama now find themselves appear to have crushed those notions.
"When you are seeking people's approval, you tend to tell them what you think they want to hear," said Brooks Jackson, a former Associated Press and CNN reporter who runs the online truth-squad effort Fact Check.org.
Analysts who have studied campaign rhetoric point out that rhetorical excess is hardly new. Plato railed against it 2,400 years ago. But even he might have been taken aback this year, particularly by the GOP ticket's recent comments and advertisements.
On Saturday, the McCain team was on the defensive after the Boston Globe reported that Palin's 2007 trip to Iraq, which the campaign had forwarded as evidence of foreign policy experience, was actually a trip to a Kuwait-Iraq border crossing. The campaign earlier had said the trip -- her only one outside North America -- included a visit to Ireland, but later acknowledged that was a refueling stop.
On Friday, McCain himself added to the list of untruths. He said on ABC's "The View" that his running mate would help him put a stop to congressional pork projects known as "earmarks," which are put into appropriations bills without the normal review procedures.
When co-host Barbara Walters noted that Palin herself has requested earmarks, McCain inaccurately responded, "No, not as governor she didn't."
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- John McCain, Barack Obama trade jabs over Iraq again Aug 19, 2008
