Here we go, they have started to sling mud. A new attack ad has been launched blaming Barack Obama for the rise in crime in Chicago. According to the Chicago Tribune, murders have risen about 18 percent over a year ago in the Windy City. But, the Republicans have chosen to blame Barack Obama for that. Is anyone blaming President Bush for all the illegal immigrants sneaking into America by way of Texas? The article goes on to state that the Republicans argue that while serving the state as its junior senator and previously when he was a state lawmaker, he didn’t do enough to make violent crime a priority. They are taking direct aim at his votes over gun legislation and the death penalty.
“Whether it was voting against or voting present on issues related to stricter penalties on offenders of serious crimes or disallowing citizens to exercise their right to self-defense, Obama demonstrated poor judgment on an important issue to his constituents,” said Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
The Obama campaign had a come-back: they have said that the link between Obama’s votes and violent crime is specious, and that he has actually done more to effectively combat urban violence than his Republican opponent, John McCain, who it says has consistently resisted federal efforts to place more police officers on the streets and voted against banning vest-piercing, or so-called cop-killer, bullets.
“John McCain voted to keep cop-killer bullets on the street and opposed the bipartisan crime bills of the early ’90s that led to the hiring of thousands of police officers and helped communities stay safe—a record that he will have to explain,” said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.
The ad is making the rounds and it directly ties Barack Obama to the rise in murders across Chicago and says he is partly to blame for the rise in gang violence. It doesn’t come from the RNC, but from Floyd Brown, the man behind the infamous “Willie Horton” ad in 1988 that damaged Michael Dukakis’ presidential hopes. That was a resounding blow to the Dukakis campaign and I think he will forever be remembered for the mess with Willie Horton, who was an African-American inmate who committed a rape on a weekend furlough from prison. This ad played on people’s fears about race and crime. Sadly, to echo the Chicago Tribune, twenty years later, the racial dynamic remains, but it is the ad’s target who is African-American, being blamed for deaths of victims, the majority of whom also are black. That’s a low blow and I hope it does not have staying power.
The crime in Chicago has gotten out of hand and law enforcement needs to take drastic measures to curb this problem, but how can they when people like Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. is saying that these armed thugs wreaking havoc on innocent people need jobs and training. He has stated that the police do not need to be armed with high-powered rifles. They need to have better weapons than the criminals running around.
Is this Barack Obama’s fault? Absolutely not, but his voting record will undoubtedly come into play, as it should. I hope he can weather the storm and the American people will decide whether or not he’s the best person for the job. I happen to think so, given the fact that John McCain is the alternative. I respect both candidates and I am not overly thrilled with either of them, but I believe Barack Obama is the lesser of two evils and he is the closest thing we have to a working class person to represent working class people in America. A vote for John McCain is essentially a third Bush term and God knows we cannot afford to have another lunatic in the White House. Just my thoughts, you be the judge…..
Filed under: Barack Obama, Chicago Crime Rates, Floyd Brown, John McCain, Wilie Horton
Black Political Thought 