This stuff is working on my "undecided" coworkers. I have to keep them focused and make them remember just how bad the GOP sucks. But right now they're being told Obama is a SOCIALIST!!!! lol
Rumors increase in last days of campaigns - Decision '08 - MSNBC.com
With just days before the election, untruths spread virally over the Internet
Barack Obama is not a member of a socialist party. John McCain is not a foreigner. Sarah Palin is not Trig's grandmother. And Joe Biden is not dropping out of the race.
But it's Rumor Season again in this country, and with just days to go before the election, both campaigns are frantically knocking down these rumors often spreading virally on the Internet along with a steady stream of other nasty hints and allegations that range from the questionable to the outrageous.
One thing you can believe: It'll only get worse between now and Election Day.
The trouble with rumors, as representatives at both campaigns said, is that even refuting them means they are repeated. Nonetheless, they said sometimes you have just to talk about it, explain why it's false, and move on.
Obama's spokesman Tommy Vietor said their strategy has been to "confront these rumors head-on" with a designated Web site stopthesmears.com and to make sure precinct captains are given factual information to counter the "ridiculous false rumors that have swirled in this campaign."
Thomas Jefferson was accused of being anti-Christian; his opponents warned that he would destroy the religious fabric and values of the country and promote an orgy of rape, incest, and adultery. John Adams, opponents said, was pro-monarchy and was planning on marrying his son to the daughter of King George III.
These smears are a great American tradition, going back to our earliest contested elections.
Eight years ago, McCain lost a strong lead in the South Carolina GOP primary, and possibly even the presidency, after what a campaign aide later described as "a textbook example of a smear." Using e-mails and push polls, Republican opponents spread the false rumor that his adopted Bangladeshi-born daughter was actually his biological and illegitimate black child. That lie was enough, observers said, to lose South Carolina.
Rumors are most effectively floated either when a candidate is first introduced, so that voters see everything that follows through the screen of those initial rumors. Or they're floated just before the election, so the smears are fresh in voters' minds when they go to the polls.
Rumors increase in last days of campaigns - Decision '08 - MSNBC.com
With just days before the election, untruths spread virally over the Internet
Barack Obama is not a member of a socialist party. John McCain is not a foreigner. Sarah Palin is not Trig's grandmother. And Joe Biden is not dropping out of the race.
But it's Rumor Season again in this country, and with just days to go before the election, both campaigns are frantically knocking down these rumors often spreading virally on the Internet along with a steady stream of other nasty hints and allegations that range from the questionable to the outrageous.
One thing you can believe: It'll only get worse between now and Election Day.
The trouble with rumors, as representatives at both campaigns said, is that even refuting them means they are repeated. Nonetheless, they said sometimes you have just to talk about it, explain why it's false, and move on.
Obama's spokesman Tommy Vietor said their strategy has been to "confront these rumors head-on" with a designated Web site stopthesmears.com and to make sure precinct captains are given factual information to counter the "ridiculous false rumors that have swirled in this campaign."
Thomas Jefferson was accused of being anti-Christian; his opponents warned that he would destroy the religious fabric and values of the country and promote an orgy of rape, incest, and adultery. John Adams, opponents said, was pro-monarchy and was planning on marrying his son to the daughter of King George III.
These smears are a great American tradition, going back to our earliest contested elections.
Eight years ago, McCain lost a strong lead in the South Carolina GOP primary, and possibly even the presidency, after what a campaign aide later described as "a textbook example of a smear." Using e-mails and push polls, Republican opponents spread the false rumor that his adopted Bangladeshi-born daughter was actually his biological and illegitimate black child. That lie was enough, observers said, to lose South Carolina.
Rumors are most effectively floated either when a candidate is first introduced, so that voters see everything that follows through the screen of those initial rumors. Or they're floated just before the election, so the smears are fresh in voters' minds when they go to the polls.
