McCain: "if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision"

Meanwhile, in terms of how often campaign ads were actually aired on TV, "during the week of September 28-October 4, nearly 100 percent of the McCain campaign’s advertisements were negative. During the same period, 34 percent of the Obama campaign’s ads were negative. [To] date, 73 percent of McCain’s ads have been negative [..] while 61 percent of Obama’s have been."

source

Apparently that sentiment goes out the window when you're losing a campaign.

It's not a sentiment, it's a diagnosis. And unfortanately for McCain, his diagnosis predicts his end game in this campaign: All he's running is negative attack ads (check), and he doesn't have much of a vision (check).

"when you got nothing, you got nothing to lose"

The "numbers" should tell everybody living in this world that McCain already lost the election. Their mud-slinging will only deepen his bad name that will only split the party further into an abyss.

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/obama-and-mccains-ads-equally-negative/

Despite finger-pointing from both sides, Barack Obama and John McCain’s presidential campaigns have run almost the same number of negative local campaign ads, Nielsen Monitor-Plus reported Thursday.

From June 3, when the primaries ended, through Sept. 7, the most recent reporting period, the McCain campaign ran 76,192 negative ads against Obama. During the same time period, the Obama campaign placed 75,246 negative commercials against McCain.

Negative advertising by both candidates and the “527” groups that support them has concentrated in the top battleground states, led by Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Here in NC, the attacks are flying from both sides, but there is a clear difference between what Obama is saying and what McCain is saying. Most (though not all) of the Obama attack adds are issue oriented and sometimes have a kicker at the end with Obama's policy. "McCain's mortgage buyout plan would save big banks and stick it to the taxpayers. Obama has a better plan." McCain's ads are "Obama is evil and all his best friends hate America." While both are negative, the Obama ads seem much more effective to me. Of course, I'm biased here, but when Obama was running the "All McCain's advisors are lobbyists", I wasn't impressed.

Yeah, it strikes me that there is a difference. There is negative, and then there is negative plus character related. Though I do think Obama has tinkered there too, with one of his ads calling McCain "erratic" or something like that. But for me to believe Cindy McCain's charge that Obama has run the dirtiest campaign in history, I'll need her to point me to the ad where Obama insinuates that McCain fathered an illegitimate black child.

How low can McCain go?

That's not McCain.

What is wrong with someone using Barack Hussein Obama. That is his name, is it not?

You're missing one of the most important issues of that link; it's against the law for a police or safety officer to wear their uniform to speak at a political rally.

This is not the Germany of old.

Yea, that a real key issue.

But Obama ran a greater total number of ads, so the proportion of negative ads was higher from the McCain campaign. Which makes for a poignant contrast with his statements.

Moreover, these numbers are about the whole campaign since the primaries ended, as you point out. As of late, the McCain campaign has taken a sharply more negative tone, and it is now airing practically only negative ads -- see the link I posted above.

What people like Woiyo continue to mis-represent is the volume and virulent message from the McCain camp. As your link shows, "McCain’s ads nearly 100% negative." He wants to rationalize his position with numbers only.

Abe Lincoln sure got that right. Unfortunately, some of McCain's supporters seem to have moved on to "everybody must get stoned", according to their behavior at some of his campaign rallys. And they don't seem to mean it in a figurative way.