The website FlackCheck.org (run by the same people who do FactCheck.org) is imagining whether Lincoln (our most respected president) could be re-elected today. The best part is a series of hypothetical campaign ads by his opponent George B. McClennan, using modern negative campaign propaganda techniques.
Here’s one of them:
They also have ads from the SuperPACs like “Logrollers for Truth”, “Citizens United Behind the Confederacy”, and “White Male Property Owners who Know a Woman’s Place”. Here’s one from the “Pious Patriots for Prayer and the Protection of Our Property”:
In all, there are more than two dozen ads.
The ads highlight that it is not just possible, but relatively easy to smear just about anyone and make them look bad. What makes this worse is that with enough money, you can almost certainly change the result of any election using techniques like this. Indeed, the “Logrollers for Truth” is a play on the “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” that successfully smeared John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election.
And where is that money coming from? Even John McCain, who is a top Romney supporter, pointed out that a recent $10 million contribution to a pro-Romney super PAC is almost certainly coming from foreign money. McCain also called the Citizens United decision, which opened up the floodgates for corporate donations “the most misguided, naive, uninformed, egregious decision of the United States Supreme Court, I think, in the 21st century.”
