Barack Obama summarizes many of John McCain’s recent lies in the above ad. A thirty second spot such as this will not change the race by its own, but it might help synergistically along with the numerous newspaper articles and editorials which are also criticizing McCain’s dishonest campaign. Even conservative sources such as Fox News and US News are criticizing McCain for his dishonesty, with US News outright calling McCain a liar. Surrogates for Obama should also hit on this point in interviews.
Exposing how dishonest a campaign McCain is running is not sufficient to beat him but it is a necessary step. If people believe their interests are better served with McCain as president, many will vote for him regardless of how much he lies. We already saw that the American people reelected George Bush despite his lies. Being exposed as dishonest is not enough to prevent one from winning an election.
It is important to expose McCain’s dishonesty because it is necessary to prevent people from falling for his false claims which give the impression that they would be better off with McCain. Many people will vote for McCain if they believe the lie that their taxes will be lower under McCain than Obama. In order for people to understand that these claims are not true they must first understand that McCain is a liar and therefore his claims about Obama’s tax plans should not be believed.
