The Evil Two-Headed Monster

Remember that creation of the 1996 Democrat-funded attack "issue" ads: some scary person named "Dole/Gingrich"?

The entire purpose of the (probably illegal) ad campaign was to tie Bob Dole - a man with a 30+ year history in Congress - to a man he most likely detested, the then-unpopular Newt Gingrich. The ads sought to make the sum of Dole's entire political career nothing more than the previous 2 years of the so-called "Gingrich Revolution".

Did it work? I don't know if people bought it or not. Clinton was going to win re-election anyway, even without the "Dole/Gingrich" ad campaign. Clinton's margin of victory, while convincing, wasn't as big as expected (as he failed to garner even 50% of the vote). But the perception at the time was that the DNC's ad campaign had effectively tied Dole to Gingrich, thereby making him "unelectable".

Last week, after John McCain pretty much wrapped up the GOP nomination, I almost predicted that we would see something similar from the Democrats this go-round: that they would create some evil two-headed monster named "Bush/McCain". I'm not sure why I never got around to writing that blog post, but I didn't. I wish I had because then I could boast about my prescient skills of prognostication.

Today, comes this report:

Obama launched his first serious shots at McCain tonight (unless he's used these lines in speeches I've missed). First, we saw him use the phrase "Bush-McCain Republicans." Then, he delivered a long denunciation/distortion of McCain's position on the war ... (emphasis added)

It would be somewhat ironic were McCain denied the White House because the opposition was able to effectively tie him to the unpopular policies of a man he quite likely despises for denying him a run at the White House 8 years ago.