CAMPAIGN 2008

'Reprehensible Misrepresentation'

A conservative adman striving to regain his Willie Horton notoriety produces a death-penalty dud aimed at Obama.

By Brooks Jackson and Emi Kolawole | factcheck.org

Apr 24, 2008 | Updated: 3:10 p.m. ET Apr 24, 2008

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Summary
Conservative activist Floyd G. Brown, who had a hand in the 1988 "Willie Horton" attack ad, is seeking funds to show a new spot accusing Obama of being "weak" on Chicago gang killers in 2001 and suggesting he'd be weak on terrorism, too. Brown bases the claim on Obama's vote against a bill to make gang killers automatically eligible for the death penalty.

We find that the ad misses the mark. The anti-gang activist who sponsored the death-penalty bill tells FactCheck.org that she doesn't consider Obama weak on crime despite his opposition to her proposal. Chicago state Rep. Susana Mendoza said the ad makes her "sick to my stomach" and "completely mischaracterizes Senator Obama's position against ruthless criminals."

The record shows that Obama, while not a cheerleader for the death penalty, has supported it for a number of crimes – including terrorism. He voted for an Illinois law in 2003 that includes the death penalty for convicted terrorists.

Analysis
The ad is the product of a new group, formed last year, calling itself the National Campaign Fund. It has raised just over $50,000 this year and spent most of it on lists of conservative donors, for fundraising purposes. As of March 31 it had only $14,028 in the bank. But on April 16 it posted the 60-second anti-Obama spot on YouTube and started seeking donations via its Web site, ExposeObama.com, to finance the purchase of broadcast time. One of the main figures in the group is Floyd G. Brown, a conservative who is considered a bogeyman in Democratic circles for his role in airing the famous Horton attack ad in 1988 against Michael Dukakis.

National Campaign Fund Ad: "Victims"
Narrator: Tamika McFadden-Harris, murdered leaving church choir practice. Cut down by gang gunfire while shielding her six-year-old daughter. Mike Boyd, killed at 15, beaten with bricks after a gang member crashed into his car. Severo Enriquez, just 14 years old when he refused to flash a gang hand sign. He was shot five times in the back. They all died in 2001, in Chicago. The Sun-Times called it "urban terrorism," and demanded action on gang violence. But that same year, a Chicago state senator named Barack Obama voted against expanding the death penalty for gang-related murders. When the time came to get tough, Obama chose to be weak. So the question is, can a man so weak on the war on gangs, be trusted in the war on terror. The National Campaign Fund is responsible for the content of this ad.

The new ad puts Sen. Barack Obama's record on capital punishment in a false light, but we held off publishing anything about it at first because the ad wasn't actually on the air and we did not wish to give it wider notoriety. However, on April 23 MSNBC broadcast it for free as a news item in the "Hardball with Chris Matthews" program and has aired it repeatedly since. The spot also has gotten wide notice on the Internet both in mainstream news stories and on conservative blogs. By April 24 the spot had logged nearly 60,000 views on YouTube. So, let's look at the facts.

Member Comments

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Posted By: Not stupid in Alabama @ 05/06/2008 3:56:39 AM

Here's another account of Obama for you.

In a campaign influenced by Walmart, instead of backing the pro-labor candidate, Obama backed a "Walmart tool."

There was little surprising about Obama's endorsement given his self-interested allegiances to the politically powerful City Hall regime of Chicago's Mayor Daley, with whom Obama shares the same big money campaign super-consultant (David Axlerod) and numerous big money sponsors.

For the first time Mayor Daley had vetoed an ordinance by his normally obedient City Council, a measure widely supported by citizens, community organizations, and labor unions in Chicago's black, Latino, and working-class wards, and he did not want the council to bring the measure up again. It was originally passed by the council under pressure from a remarkable grassroots campaign, and would have required giant retail corporations like Wal-Mart, Target, Lowes, and Home Depot to pay workers a modest minimum wage of ten dollars an hour by 2010.

Wal-Mart and Target announced that they were putting a number of "big box" retail developments on hold in Chicago, and launched a preemptive public relations strike, threatening to disinvest in the city unless a "favorable business climate" was restored. Daley made a special point of wrapping his veto in the flag of racial justice, claiming it was required to permit the flowering of economic development in the city's abandoned ghetto neighborhoods.

Pat Dowell, the recipient of significant support from the Service Employees' International Union (SEIU), was running against Tillman, and Dowell had strongly criticized Tillman for siding with Daley and Wal-Mart.

Obama needed the support of the powerful campaign finance magnet Daley, and endorsed Tillman, over labor-backed Dowell.

Obama's wife Michelle then received $51,200 in 2006 for attending a few board meetings of TreeHouse Foods, a giant firm that relied heavily on its close business relationship with Wal-Mart. The granting of high-pay/do-little board posts to the spouses of politicians is a longstanding tool of the "old," corporate-dominated politics that Senator Obama claims to reject. This is not like Clinton's placement on the board of Walmart as the result of an effort to address sex discrimination in Walmart's employment practices.

Mrs. Obama resigned from her position with TreeHouse in the summer of 2007, citing "increased demands on her time" in connection with her husband's presidential campaign.

It isn't surprising that she cut her politically damaging ties to a notoriously anti-labor company that her husband was attacking Clinton about in his speeches.
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Posted By: Not stupid in Alabama @ 05/06/2008 3:54:59 AM

There have always been various constituencies in the democratic party, most notably, the minorities, the liberals and the Regan Democrats. The key to winning the White House has been to get them to come together. Bill Clinton was successful in achieving this goal. Hillary could have been, but Obama is too liberal to appeal to the Reagan Democrats and has carved out the ultra-liberal/minority segment of the party.

Moderate democrats don't vote against Obama because he is black, they vote against him because he is too liberal. They wouldn't vote for Kennedy either, and they didn't vote for Kerry. They would vote for Colin Powell if he was running, but he isn't. Obama does not appeal to the religious right or to Regan-democrats (those bitter gun lovers who cling to their religion) who will vote McCain if he gets the nomination. That is what the Republicans are counting on and why they have begun their 527 ads in NC where those Regan democrats are the reason that state usually votes Republican for president. This is important in a state like NC where even if they vote Republican for president, they elect democrats to state and national offices. We can't afford to lose those state elections with redistricting coming up.

While Hillary's economic strength would expose McCain's weakness, Obama's "shouldn't have voted to authorize force in Iraq" plays into McCain's strength, as indicated by the new 527 ad already being used in NC where so many democrats have endorsed Obama, and the Republicans see an opening to challenge them at the state and national office level for making that endorsement.
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Posted By: Not stupid in Alabama @ 05/06/2008 3:54:16 AM

Actually that ad would be pretty effective. Have you seen it? The criticism that the news story about the deaths was not published until after Obama had voted no on the death penalty for gang related killings really doesn't matter.

Here's another account of Obama from the LA Times. According to their story, even though Illinois ethics disclosure forms are designed to reveal possible financial conflicts by lawmakers, on disclosure forms for 2001 and 2002, Obama did not specify that the company involved (EKI) provided him with the bulk of the private-sector compensation he received. Instead, as was his custom, he attached a multi-page list of all the law firm's clients, which included EKI among hundreds. Illinois law does not require more specific disclosure.

Stanley Brand, a Washington lawyer who counsels members of Congress and others on ethics rules, said he would have advised a lawmaker in Obama's circumstances to separately disclose such a singularly important client and not simply include it on a list of hundreds of firm clients, even if the law does not explicitly require it. "I would say you should disclose that to protect and insulate yourself against the charge that you are concealing it," Brand said.

Obama's tax returns show that he made no money from his law practice in 2000, the year of his unsuccessful run for a congressional seat. But that changed in 2001, when Obama reported $98,158 income for providing legal services. Of that, $80,000 was from Blackwell's company.

In 2002, the state senator reported $34,491 from legal services and speeches. Of that, $32,000 came from the EKI legal assignment, which ended in April 2002 by mutual agreement, as Obama ceased the practice of law and looked ahead to the possibility of running for the U.S. Senate. .

Obama's spokesman said that listing all clients was appropriate and that doing so allowed the public to see any and all potential conflicts for Obama and his law firm colleagues. "He was especially mindful of this responsibility as a leader of ethics reform," said Gibbs, his chief campaign spokesman.

A few months after receiving his final payment from Blackwell's company, EKI, Obama sent a request on state Senate letterhead urging Illinois officials to provide a $50,000 tourism promotion grant to another Blackwell company, Killerspin.

Though Obama's formal efforts consisted of writing a letter and a proclamation, the nitty-gritty of obtaining state grants fell to a former state Senate and campaign aide to Obama, Dan Shomon.

Shomon, working part time for Obama's campaign and for Killerspin, helped prepare Killerspin's initial grant application in 2002. Still working part time with Obama, Shomon helped Killerspin secure a $200,000 grant for its 2003 tournament and a $100,000 grant for its 2004 tournament.

Nice return on Blackwell's "investment" in Obama. So much for Obama's sense of ethics and transparency.