Why the Smears Won't Work

Another day another scandal. Actually they are coming faster than that. The latest Sarah Palin non-scandal has to do with a supposed affair she had with her husband's business partner and his efforts to have his divorce records sealed, but it has already been debunked (via Hot Air):

Nutcase bloggers will have to find another smear against Sarah Palin ... again. Did you hear that Todd Palin's former business partner tried to get his divorce records sealed? Conspiracy theorists immediately began speculating on line that Sarah Palin -- that vixen! -- must have had an affair and broken up the marriage. Why else would the partner suddenly act to seal his records?

As the Smoking Gun discovered, Scott Richter wanted them sealed -- to protect himself from conspiracy theorists...Isn't that an extra dollop of irony? Mr. Richter wants to protect his son from lunatics. What happens? The lunatics use that as "evidence" that Palin had an affair with Richter and descend on him to get the dirt.

If Obama's supporters have not figured it out yet, I'll give them a tip -- their scandal strategy isn't going to work. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Sympathy. They started off with a vile rumor that Palin faked the pregnancy of her fifth child, then turned it into an attack on her 17-year-old pregnant daughter. The fake pregnancy rumor was false. Not only were they shockingly nasty and vicious, they were also wrong. They lost their credibility and created sympathy for Palin in the process. Palin has shown she doesn't want or need anyone's sympathy, but she got it just the same, thanks to those who sought to destroy her.

2. Sarah Palin has connected with the American people. 37 million people heard her speak, in her own words, without interruption or editing from the Obamedia. It will be harder to make a scandal stick to someone America feels they know. Who ya gonna believe? The witty, down-to-earth straight talker with the beautiful family and the inspiring life story or the slimy rumor mongers who already tried to feed you a pack of lies?

3. People want someone to work to solve their problems. Are they going to be more likely to have a good opinion of a campaign that is addressing the problems they have or the campaign that appears to be obsessed with tearing their opponent apart?

4. The Obamedia has been exposed. Over the past year or more the media have fawned over Barack Obama. Over the past week the media have hit Sarah Palin with dozens of accusations based on little more than nutty leftwing hate site rumors. Recent polls show over 50 percent of the American public believe the media is trying to hurt Sarah Palin.

5. They just don't know how to do subtle. Instead of picking one or two really good scandals, they are throwing scores of them out there willy nilly, without fact checking or even, in some cases, bothering to read them in their entirety. One example is the list of books Palin supposedly banned -- the problem is that many of the books on the list were not even published yet when Palin supposedly banned them. Another accusation was that Palin cut funding for pregnant teens. Those circulating that one evidently were not so good at reading or at math. The document they presented as proof, actually showed an expansion of the program, but that did not keep the accusation from being reported by the Washington Post and the New York Times. Yet another accusation was that Palin cut funding for special needs children. Not true, and easily debunked in a matter of minutes with a Google search, yet it also was widely reported as fact and was even cited by Soledad O'Brien on CNN.

Some of the rumors mentioned above were repeated on television and on the front pages of some of the most respected newspapers in America. If the initial fake pregnancy rumor had not backfired so spectacularly, ensuring Sarah Palin the massive audience of 37 million, some of these other rumors reported in the MSM might have really hurt Palin. Even though they weren't true, voters would not likely learn that until they had already formed a negative opinion of Palin. Now that the public has gotten a good first impression of her, and they know that many of the rumors out there are turning out to be false, the scandals to come are likely to hurt Palin about as much as Bill Clinton's scandals hurt him.

Source (See the original for links)

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Palin now greeted by 'Sarah! Sarah!'

The banners, buttons and signs say McCain-Palin, but the crowds say something else. "Sa-rah! Pa-lin!" came the chant at a Colorado Springs rally on Saturday moments before Republican nominee John McCain took the stage with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a woman who was virtually unknown to the nation just a week earlier. The day before, thousands screamed "Sa-rah! Sa-rah! Sa-rah!" at an amphitheater outside Detroit. "Real change with a real woman," read one sign at a Wisconsin rally. "Hurricane Sarah leaves liberals spinning," cried another.

In the short time since McCain spirited the 44-year-old first-term governor out of Alaska and onto a national stage as his running mate, Palin has become an instant celebrity. And since her speech at the Republican National Convention, watched by more than 40 million Americans, she is emerging as the main attraction for many voters at their campaign appearances. "She's the draw for a lot of people," said Marilyn Ryman, who came to see her at the Colorado rally inside an airport hangar. "The fact that she's someone new, not the old everything we've seen before."

McCain has sought to portray Palin as a bulldog who will help him "shake things up" on Capitol Hill. Washington, he said Saturday, is "going to get to know her, but I can't guarantee you they'll love her." "We do!" came a cry from the crowd.

"Colorado, it's going to be a hard-fought battle here," Palin said. As soon as she began speaking, a group of supporters interrupted her with a cheer of "Sa-rah! Sa-rah!"

More here

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ELSEWHERE

It looks like the Obama birth certificate controversy is not going away.

McCain 54 to 44 among likely voters: "Republican presidential candidate John McCain leads Democratic contender Barack Obama by 50 percent to 46 percent among registered voters, according to a weekend USA Today/Gallup Poll, USA Today reported. The surge in enthusiasm following the selection of McCain's running mate Sarah Palin marks a turnaround from the poll taken just before the Republican convention opened in St. Paul when he lagged by 7 percentage points, the newspaper reported. The new poll, taken Friday though Sunday, shows McCain leading Obama by 54 percent to 44 percent among people most likely to vote and was conducted among 1,022 adults, including 959 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 points for both samples, the newspaper said."

Another dishonest criticism of Sarah: "It is said that with five children, she has too many other obligations to take on the role of vice president. Give me a break. She can't vote in the senate when there is a tie? C'mon! This charge emanates from left-wing feminists, of course. Suppose Hillary were to have had five children the ages of Sarah's. Would the legions of her supporters be making this case with regard to Mrs. Clinton? To ask this is to answer it. In that case, Hillary's ascendency would only serve as evidence that "You can have it all." The hypocrisy of these "feminists" stinks to the high heavens. They do not support the idea of women breaking through the so-called glass ceiling. Rather, they favor left-wing socialist females being given positions of authority and responsibility. This is something very different. It is a rare occasion that these feminists have been caught with their contradictions so much in the public eye. All those sick and tired of these harridans ought to thank Sarah for this one boon alone."

Bill Kristol thanks the media for their role in boosting Sarah Palin: "The astounding (even to me, after all these years!) smugness and mean-spiritedness of so many in the media engendered not just interest in but sympathy for Palin. It allowed Palin to speak not just to conservatives but to the many Americans who are repulsed by the media's prurient interest in and adolescent snickering about her family. It allowed the McCain-Palin ticket to become the populist standard-bearer against an Obama-Media ticket that has disdain for Middle America."

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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