Anybody who doesn’t think John McCain can defeat Barack Obama by
focusing on real issues is somebody who hasn’t seen Citizens
United’s latest documentary tour de force, “Hype: The Obama
Effect.”
On the heels of successful documentaries a) answering Michael
Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911,” b) criticizing the United Nations, c)
exploring with Newt Gingrich this nation’s history of acknowledging
God in the public square, and d) taking the fight to Hillary
Clinton, CU’s David Bossie now has produced a superlative,
fact-heavy analysis of Barack Obama’s record, rhetoric, ideology
and inclinations. Granted, “Hype” includes no interviews with
anybody left of the political center-right, so the opinions in it
are predictably expressed from a conservative perspective. But
facts are facts, and “Hype” outlines a bevy of them in a manner
that should compel any fair-minded viewer to wonder if Obama is
anywhere even within sniffing distance of the broad American
political mainstream.
The establishment media, Bossie says, have not spent nearly
enough “questioning who Barack Obama is, what he stands for, and if
he is ready to lead America…. There are very few places where the
full record of Barack Obama is available.”
The film premiered in Denver during the Democratic Convention
and in Minnesota during the GOP confab, and is premiering Wednesday
and Thursday of this week in Phoenix and Seattle. But perhaps the
people who need to see it the most are the high commanders of John
McCain’s campaign — because commercials about lipstick and
celebrity and “disrespect” of Sarah Palin will wear out their
welcome rather quickly.
Without rehashing the film point by point, suffice it to say
that even a sober, unhyped look at Obama’s record and issue
positions should make the Democratic nominee unpalatable to Middle
America.
If the McCain campaign doesn’t make every sentient American
aware by Election Day, for instance, that Barack Obama led the
fight against saving babies born alive during “botched” abortions,
it will be committing political malpractice. Obama’s position was
not just wrongheaded but positively monstrous, sickening,
borderline inhuman.
Likewise, voters should know about how Obama proposes (or has
proposed) to tax small businesses exorbitantly, meet with enemies
like Iran’s Ahmadinejad “without precondition,” keep offshore oil
fields off limits for drilling, and seriously limit handgun
ownership rights. They should know that he chairs a subcommittee
that partly oversees NATO (and its mission in Afghanistan), but
hasn’t held a single hearing. They should know how even his fellow
Democrats have criticized him for breezing into committee meetings
late and then rehashing already-covered material. And they should
know — and this I do feel certain McCain will mention
often — how incredibly and repeatedly wrong Obama was on the
“surge” in Iraq.
Voters should be reminded that Obama voted against the
confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts. And that he is among
the biggest recipients of campaign donations from Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac. And that he has no record of bipartisanship. And that
he proposes hundreds of billions of dollars of new government
spending.
And, taking a page from Gingrich’s research showing that
Americans overwhelmingly support English language instruction and
requirements, the McCain team would be wise to highlight Obama’s
sneering hostility to English preferences in law.
Finally, on one of the biggest kitchen-table issues of these
times, McCain should stress repeatedly the fact that Obama opposes
McCain’s proposal to allow health insurance to be sold across state
lines. Michigan voters, for instance, should have the option to buy
their insurance in, say, South Dakota, if the premiums are lower in
the latter.
In all of this, it should be easy to explain how Obama’s
policies would negatively affect the lives of average Americans.
But — back to Bossie’s movie again — Obama’s opponents ought not
shy away from a fuller exposition of just how closely tied Obama
was to a whole slew of radicals and crooks, and of how that
background also could affect policies that have repercussions for
Middle American values, jobs, and safety.
Again, these disturbing facets of Obama’s record can speak for
themselves if presented simply and unadorned, without any
histrionics or hyped-up language to scare the public. The record
itself is such anathema to Middle America that voters will “get it”
even without some somber-voiced ad narrator or ominous music
pounding home the point.
Rhetoric aside, Obama is about as much in step with the majority
of Americans as Britney Spears would be if she were trying to
foxtrot with Fred Astaire. (“Hype” does show Obama dancing funkily
with Ellen DeGeneres, but that’s another story.) Strip away Obama’s
deep-timbred voice and his puffball platitudes, and what remains is
nothing more than an academic radical using Chicago machine
politics to grab a power base and using smoke-and-mirrors to
project a pleasing image. The way to break through this “Obama
Effect” is to focus on substance, and let the people decide.
