The Worst Attack Imaginable

This is ABSOLUTELY what McCain's campaign is doing here. As a man with a number of friends in the "evangelical Christian" category, I can tell you that the "Obama as anti-Christ" comment has come up a number of times. This goes with the "Obama as Muslim" narrative...anything McCain can do to make white Americans and evangelicals nervous about Obama, you bet they'll do. Who says racism is dead?

Political musings from Left and Right in America's heatland.

We dispute.  You decide.

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I've always noticed that usually people complain about negative campaigning when it's working against them. That's definitely the case here. Barack Obama should worry more about keeping his word on his positions and also not pissing off Clinton supporters rather than what John McCain's doing. Obama started this general election campaign with a huge advantage and he's screwing it up.

I don't look at these ads as portraying Obama as the anti-Christ. Rather I look at them as anti-Messiah ads. His following has been almost cult-like following, people passing out in the crowds, quick rise to fame, etc. His recent speech (I couldn't find links to it) where he declared now is the time we have been waiting for was along the same lines. The most recent set of ads is not trying to present him as the anti-Christ, but rather to make the viewer believe that Obama thinks that he himself is the Messiah, sent to rescue us from ourselves. I find it interesting that many people who complained about Bush speaking from pulpits of churches and complained about churches exhibiting political influence now are in favor of Obama speaking in churches and are going out of their way to proclaim Obama as a Christian. Kind of ironic, you know? P.S. I dislike any anti-campaigning commercials from either party and pay no attention to them. That's been my personal policy for the last 25+ years. This year will be no different. So far, the only negative ads (or positive ads for that matter) that I've seen on television have been Obama's. McCain isn't paying for ads in this area yet.

Isn't the Anti-Christ necessary for the second coming of Christ according to the Left Behind crowd? BTW, the Left Behind series is the top seller in the history of publishing---this ad speaks to millions of people. Sean Hannity has been playing clips insinuating that Barack is the Anti-Christ on his radio show everyday. Here's what Barack should say in response to this attack---"I am not Moses, but I'm here to work to deliver people away from pharoh."

Back to before 100AD. "Necessary" isn't the word I would use, but I won't argue with it. I would say that the anti-Christ's coming will precede Christ's return. I don't listen to Sean with any regularity, maybe once every 2-3 months when I happen to be in the car when he's on. The purpose of these anti ads (as I see them) is to emphasize that Obama keeps trying to show himself as the Messiah, or someone to deliver himself. I personally don't believe he feels this way, but there are many of us right-wingers who see Obama as portraying himself as "The One" as you reported to deliver people away. Obama makes very good use of religous feelings when it suits him. He's an excellent speaker. He knows how to lead his people. All very good traits. When the Rev. Wright fiasco hit the fan, he gave a speech about his feelings on the whole fiasco. About 1/2 of his speech focused on the issue. Then he pointed out that the issue distracted us from the real issues. So do these anti-anyone ads that both candidates are running. ("Yeah, but your guy did it first!" - get a life) Obama rightly tried to re-focus from these silly issues to the issues he felt were important. For more information on this speech see my previous comments at http://newfromclt.blogspot.com/2008/04/obamas-remarks-on-wright.html. This post also contains a link to Obama's speech, so you can decide if you think he's focusing on the correct issues.

Personally, I think the Left Behind series and the futurist interpetation of the book of Reveleation is all wrong. I think John of Patmos was indicting Empire, specifically the Roman Empire, for its political oppression and economic exploitation. All the books of the Bible had been written before Islam was founded. Yet, Fundamentalists think we're locked into a clash of civilizations. My fifth grade social studies teacher taught us in the early 1980's that the Communist Soviets would attack Israel from all directions as Pat Robertson and his ilk predicted. That crowd has zero credibility left in my book. But Obama better address the Anti-Christ smears.