Who’s more negative – officially speaking?

With the subject of negative ads rearing its ugly head again, I was wondering who is in fact running the most negative campaign (I know, I know – just humor me). With all the so-called 527s obscuring the message, wholly-independent Republican groups and surrogates of Kerry alike, I figured the best way to get to the heart of the matter would be to go directly to the official sites of each campaign and compare them, to see who is being “officially” more negative.
The Kerry/Edwards page shows a big picture of John Kerry, waving to the faithful at a rally, with the caption “Serving His Country.” Rah, rah, very nice, very positive. Yawn. There are calls to volunteer, links to biographical information, and in the right column, there are boxes containing the latest official ad from the campaign and one with the caption “Our Plan for America” peddling a book that presumably outlines what a Kerry/Edwards administration would attempt to do. Yawn. Good thing I’m not driving right now.
No problems so far. If you scroll down the page you see blurbs about tour stops, testimonials about Kerry and – oops, there it is! Over on the right, just above the box pimping Kerry gear, there’s a box called “bush-cheney: wrong for America” that accuses them of one of the most negative campaigns ever. That’s a bold statement! Clicking on that link, sure enough, there’s a media center dedicated to debunking Bush’s claims to things such as success in Iraq and health care reform, and reminding us of his ties to oil and pharmaceuticals. Okay, that’s not very nice.
Now, let’s look at the Bush/Cheney site. Hmm right there, where the Democratic site has a picture of John Kerry there is a picture of…hey, its John Kerry! Wow, they must really respect the guy.
No wait, it’s a link to the Bush campaign’s latest ad. And it says nothing about President Bush – it claims that Kerry is saying he wants to ease the middle class tax burden, but that his record suggests he is lying and that we shouldn’t trust him. Repeat after me: “98 tax increases.” Over there, right next to it is “John Kerry: the raw deal,” saying something about 98 tax increases. To the left, where they have links to biographical info and all, there is a link to the Kerry media room. A simlar place to the one on the Kerry site. Oh, did I mention 98 tax increases? If I didn’t, just let me say: 98 tax increases. But I digress…
We scroll down and see – oh look, there’s a cute little caricature of John Kerry holding two signs, one saying “against” and the other “for”. It links to this hi-larious little John Kerry flip-flop game that also has lovely charicatures of Hillary, Ted and Howard. It cracked me up!
Beside it, you will find the Kerry gas tax calculator. It duly notes that John Kerry “has supported a 50 cent per gallon tax increase,” and then it has these cool calculators where you can find out how much your gas expense would increase based on the type of car you drive, what state you live in, and how much you drive per day. Cool! Of course, Kerry isn’t proposing a gas tax now, but still I….Whoa!! I’d be paying THAT much??? No thanks, Mr, Kerry!
Curiously, on the entire home page (as of today, 8/24/04) there are no pictures of either Bush or Cheney (the latter, probably a wise decision) and there are no testimonials or anthing like that. No, wait, there is a chat with George’s nephew, George P. Bush. He has a Mexican wife, you know. But still, Kerry has a testimonial from a former democratic president. Bush has one from a relative! Couldn’t he get someone more official-sounding? Next thing you know, he’s going to trot out his dad! But again, I digress.
So let’s see, the Bush/Cheney features negative stuff four times at the top of the page and a couple more lower down. But Kerry has a link to negative press too, so there you have it – it’s a tie! They both can be negative!
Maybe the problem is that liberals don’t have a sense of humor. Hey liberals – lighten up, will ya?? Now, I’m gonna go back and play that Kerry Flip-Flop Olympics game again. That thing just cracks me up!!!!