Political Parties
The 2008 presidential race proved that both major political parties are more united than ever. Whether that is a positive or negative thing is unsure. However, it seems that one’s political party is more important than the individual elected officials themselves. The recent presidential race seemed to be more about loyalty to each political party than the actual messages that were being presented. The republican candidate John McCain chose to personally attack the democratic nominee Barack Obama numerous times. Many would argue that part of the reason Barack Obama was elected was because he choose to stay the coarse, not be distracted by the attacks and talk about important issues instead of involving himself with a back and forth. Because of the attacks and miss information, many republican supporters are now against anything that is proposed by a democrat. This might not be because of true disagreement, but it is instead due to political party loyalty.
• There were many times during the 2008 presidential race when John McCain’s campaign would not only tell lies about Barack Obama, but he would make these lies about Obama’s personal life the centerpiece of his campaign message. The republican political party has a long history of doing this. At one point in the campaign, McCain’s political party ran television ads claiming that the church that Barack Obama used to attend had a reverend that seemed to be incredibly racist and against the United States government. There are many video clips of Reverend Jeremiah Wright talking about racist issues and suggesting anarchy. While Obama did attend the church and was most likely present during some of Wright’s speeches, the opposing political party exaggerated their relationship to make it seem like Barack Obama was in favor of the same messages. A similar situation occurred later in the race when the McCain campaign claimed that Barack Obama surrounded himself with terrorists, referring Bill Ayers. Mr. Ayers was part of a radical group in the 1960s that bombed several government buildings. In the mid-nineties, both Obama and Ayers worked together on a project that improved schools in Chicago and later in the decade they were both board members for a foundation that gave money to charitable causes. So instead of explaining what their actual relationship consisted of, the McCain campaign used the guilt by association method in order to make Obama look like an anarchist. Both political parties took a hit from these types of attacks. The democratic nominee would look bad right when the attacks were made due to the media’s coverage of the message and then the republican nominee would look weak once the truth came out and it was clear that there was lying or exaggerating going on.
Both political parties ran tough campaigns that challenged the opposing party. Many political parties use dishonest methods to run a campaign in an attempt to get ahead when facts, polls or statistics are not on their side. Some would claim that this is why John McCain lost. He was more interested in telling lies about Obama instead of talking about the economy which was going through the worst recession since the great depression at the time of the race. Political parties are sometimes known for this type of politics. For many, this is why politics they pay attention to politics. Whether you are for dishonest politics or not, most will agree that it does make political races entertaining.