“A central goal of the anti-Romney commercials is to cross-pressure these whites. Persuading more than 28 percent of them to vote for Obama is a tough sell, but the Obama campaign can try to make the alternative, voting for Romney, equally unacceptable. Conflicted voters, especially those holding negative views of both candidates, are likely to skip voting altogether.”
According to Edsall, the Republicans pulled the same trick in 2004, and they’re at again in 2012: “In 2004, for example, in a tactic designed to decrease black turnout, the Bush campaign sent deeply religious black voters mail and email noting Democratic support for same-sex civil unions, with the goal of creating ambivalence toward Senator John F. Kerry. Over the past two years, Republican-controlled state legislatures have been conducting an aggressive vote-suppression strategy of their own through the passage of voter identification laws and laws imposing harsh restrictions on voter registration drives.”
The only thing is, Tom, discouraging folks from voting by dissing the guy they’re likely to vote for if they vote at all is not the same thing as preventing them from voting in the first place. Saying that “discouraging” equals “suppressing” equals “preventing” somehow proves that “discouraging” equals “preventing” is the kind of error a journalism professor from Columbia really shouldn’t be making. “The Politics of Anything Goes”? How about “The Journalism of Total Incompetency”?
