Real time underhanded election tricks

[renata]

I always wanted to keep track of what I considered potentially underhanded tactics- by all sides- in an election. In other words- not discussions on the issues, but attempts to paint the opponent in a negative light. Here is that chance.

Inviting people to participate in this, list incidents they find distasteful- by either side.

Here are some to start you off

A vote for Kerry will make Osama happy
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/05/mgrind.day.fri/index.html

Democrats are having a field day with comments they say Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, made last week at a local GOP gathering in his district.

....
He said Osama bin Laden would draw comfort from Bush's defeat and that a vote against Bush could represent a weakening of American resolve to defeat terrorism.

The congressman went on to say, "What do you think Hitler would have thought if Roosevelt would have lost the election in 1944? He would have thought American resolve was [weakening]."

Moveon ads that likened Bush to Hitler

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/01/05/wbr.move.on.ads/index.html

Two ads comparing President Bush to Adolph Hitler were made public recently, and at least one of these was posted on the Web site MoveOn.org.

....
MoveOn.org officials acknowledge that at least one of these ads was posted on its site between December 17 and December 31. But they say the ad has since been pulled off. And when we asked for a copy of it, we were told MoveOn no longer had it.

This one may or may not belong on this list- I do not know enough about the law to know who is in the right here. So it could go as a mark against either side.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/10/fec.ads/index.html

The Bush-Cheney re-election campaign plans to file a complaint Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, charging that a $5.1 million anti-Bush ad campaign in key battleground states violates the new campaign finance reform law, spokesman Terry Holt said.
....
On Friday, the Republican National Committee sent a letter to TV stations around the country, warning them that another group working for Bush's defeat, the MoveOn.org Voter Fund, was funding a similar ad by with illegal soft money. The RNC asked the stations to stop running the ads.

And, finally- I have no links for this specifically, but I saw Tom DeLay make a snide comment about Kerry being educated in Europe. I have also heard various Republicans comment on the fact that Kerry speaks French. The only link I found is this

http://www.insultsunpunished.com/archives/cat_europe.php

At a recent Washington breakfast, Tom DeLay, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, greeted guests with the words: “Good morning, or bonjour as John Kerry would say.”

Similarly I heard it- but have no written sources for - that some Republicans make much of the fact Kerry went to Yale, and is wealthy- so he is not a man of the people, like Bush. *cough* *sputter*


Edited to add the Delay boarding school quote

"He is either insincere about his new spending, dishonest about his new taxes, uninterested in the new deficit, or they just didn't teach him arithmetic at the European boarding school that he went to."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/03/elec04.prez.house.gop.kerry/