From Politico:
At a press availability in Monroe, Mich., Barack Obama said: "Back off these kinds of stories."
"I have said before, and I will repeat again: People's families are off-limits," Obama said. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn't be a topic of our politics."
On charges that his campaign has stoked the story via liberal blogs:
"I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us," he said. "Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I thought there was somebody in my campaign who was involved in something like that, they would be fired."
Of course, there is no way to control people not directly associated with campaigns. Partisans of both sides will spread rumors if they think it helps their candidate. Righties keep forwarding e-mails about Obama being Muslim (translation: remember he is Black and be scared). Lefties will keep pouncing on McCain and Palin in any way they want as well, regardless of the truth. I wish Dems would stick to the truth - it is sufficient to tank Republicans for a generation - but wishing it does not make it happen.
Official statements by the campaigns distancing themselves from such rumours will be believed by some and not by others. Campaigns were always wars with no rules and those who think or wish people followed rules will lose.
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Is it all right to ask Palin about the effectiveness of abstinance-only sex education?
Yes. It is about policy, not her daughter.
So you ask her about the policy. She responds with something like "I believe abstinence only education is the most effective form of sex education." Then what? It's off limits to point out the human face of the failures of that policy?
Bristol Palin didn't ask to be facing a media hurricane, nor should she be abused to make political points. It is however legitimate to ask the McCain team just how they vetted the VP choice. Didn't anyone take the family aside and explain to them that they had better reveal ANYTHING that might affect the campaign BEFORE they found themselves under the press' microscope? That they were soon going to be completely powerless to hide anything?
McCain now makes the patently false and desperate claim that he knew all along. Sure John.
The other thing that "lefties" do is to constantly accuse McCain voters of being racist. That's pretty low, don't you think?
Please stop. I'm sure some voters are not voting for Obama because he's black and some are not voting for McCain because he's white. But there are lots of other reasons for voting.
Some don't, I am sure. But many do. And it has been studied but not reported. Perhaps I should blog about it.
In my sentence "Righties keep forwarding e-mails about Obama being Muslim (translation: remember he is Black and be scared)." where exactly did I even hint that I think that all McCain voters are racist? I am reporting on what some people on the Right are doing - those e-mails will affect the racist voters and will repulse the non-racists so they are careful who they send them to.
1981 interview with Atwater:
"Questioner: But the fact is, isnt it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.""
This strategy moved lots of racists from Dems to GOP at the time.
Over these last 8 years a lot of people left the GOP, mostly more moderate and more enlightened people. What is left in the GOP are, thus, mostly racists. Sad but true.
Race and class does rear its ugly heads in these matters. True, no one should drag Palin's daughter in all of this, but I find the 'framing' of this girl's "predictament" curious.
Since, she is a Sweet white girl from a good family and is pregnant and her parents have promised the couple will marry, she is presented an ideal story of mis-guided love with a happy pro-life ending. But time and again poor white girls and girls of color are painted as harlots, undisciplined lacking self-control and coming from families with bad values and their decisions to have a baby out of wedlock is yet another example of why welfare is so evil.
No one applauds these girls for their moral choices to keep their babies.
What's up with that? How will this matter play out?