Hall of Shame

Marcus Baram, The Huffington Post | Full Story | Some of the crudest attacks in this campaign, many of which are circulated by independent operatives and players not affiliated with the McCain campaign, have used the oldest campaign technique in the book: flyers posted on bulletin boards and shoved under car windshield wipers.

The worst examples, shown in the accompanying slideshow, have used racist caricatures, implied that Obama has an affinity with Osama Bin Laden, and suggested that the country is on the verge of a race war.

There have been some anti-McCain flyers with caricatures of the candidate as a scarred POW but they did not appear during the general election and were distributed by McCain’s contenders in the hotly-contested Republican primary.

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September, the Suffolk University College Republicans came under fire after creating a flyer depicting Barack Obama with a digitally superimposed pig’s nose and smeared lipstick. The text reads: "You know, you can put lipstick on a pig. but it’s still a pig." The cliche was used by Obama in a speech mocking John McCain’s claim to be an agent of change. But it was widely misinterpreted as an attack on Sarah Palin, who famously described her personality with the line: "You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick." The flyer, which was found on a bulletin board in the university’s Ridgeway building, was condemned by Bob Rosenthal, chair of the school’s Communication and Journalism Department. "Obviously freedom of speech is important, the First Amendment is important, but this is in incredibly poor taste," he told the Suffolk Journal. "It does nothing to further political debate."

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In late September, a white supremacist group spread this anti-Obama political leaflet headlined "Do You Want A Black President?: Black Ruled Nations most unstable and violent in the world" and featuring a doctored photo of Obama wearing a turban around the New Jersey neighborhood of Roxbury. It goes on to ask "Why should we seal our fate by allowing a Black ruler to destroy us?" The group behind the leaflet, the League of American Patriots restricts its membership to "adult heterosexual men and women who are entirely of European Christian ancestry."

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A flyer from the Republican Party of Virginia attacking Obama for wanting to appease terrorists and leaders of rogue nations made the rounds of the state in early October. The photo featured the eyes of a man who looks like Obama although it seems to depict Osama Bin Laden and is headlined, "America Must Look Evil In The Eye And Never Flinch." Elsewhere, the sinister faces of Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, are featured.

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This mailer sent out to likely voters in Florida features a horrifying image of the Statue of Liberty stripped of its eyes, nose and mouth with the headline, "If the Democrats win the White House this November, AMERICA WILL BE UNRECOGNIZABLE" in an obvious attempt to play to anti-immigrant hysteria.

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One of the crudest flyers, distributed recently to 200 members of a Republican women’s group in California, the Chaffey Community Republican Women, Federated, plays to the worst racial stereotypes. The newsletter states that if Obama is elected, his image will appear on food stamps, instead of dollar bills like other presidents. The Obama Bucks features a smiling Obama surrounded by a bucket of fried chicken, ribs, and watermelon. In her apology letter, the group’s president, Diane Fedele, said that she only wanted to make light of a comment Obama made that as an African-American, he "doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

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This mailer, sent out by the Republican Party of Florida, features a menacing photo of Obama against an all-black background with the headline, "Crime & Punishment." The other side of the mailer states, "Obama: ’he acted more as a friend to criminals than cops.’" It concludes, "Barack Obama, not who you think he is."

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This flier, distributed in Wisconsin last week, pretends to be a message from Barack Hussein Obama II for President. Crudely playing to racial fears, the letter states, "Change means... BLACK! We will take care of our people when we win this election on November 4th, 2008. Don’t wait, vote now and take a friend that will vote for the next Black President."

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This mailer, an official product of the McCain-Palin campaign, depicts passengers at an airport below the headline in ransom-letter-type stating "Terrorists Don’t Care Who They Hurt, Why Should We Care What They Have to Say, Barack Obama Thinks Terrorists Just Need A Good Talking To." The mailer, which McCain reportedly said he is "absolutely" proud of, concludes "Barack Obama. Not Who You Think He Is."