Hate Campaigns in US

Obama is a traitor, cry McCain supporters

Crowds at Republican rallies hurl insults at Democrat candidate

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Friday, 10 October 2008

Related Articles

• Michelle stays cool on 'Daily Show'
• Matthew Norman: The peculiar tragedy of this flawed hero, John McCain
• Leading article: Mud-slinging to little effect
• US Election Diary
• On The Campaign Trail

•  Print 
•  Email

Search 
 Independent.co.uk  Web

Bookmark & Share

• Digg It
• del.icio.us
• Facebook
• Stumbleupon

What are these?

Change font size: A A A

Rallies for John McCain and Sarah Palin are becoming rabble-rousing events where warm-up speakers encourage unruly crowds to vent hatred for the Democratic contender, Barack Obama. Cat-calls of "traitor", "criminal" and "terrorist" have been heard.

The McCain campaign protests that it does not condone such behaviour and does not want to see it happen. But in the closely contested states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, a campaign that had been confined to the internet is coming into full public view. One of the main things that the Obama campaign's "Fight The Smears" unit have been battling are the false rumour that their candidate is Muslim. At a 6,000-strong rally in Pennsylvania this week, as the two candidates on the Republican ticket waited backstage, a senior party member asked the crowd how they would feel about having a president with the middle name Hussein.

"Think about how you'll feel on 5 November if you wake up and see the news, that Barack Obama – that's Barack Hussein Obama – is the president-elect of the United States," said Bill Platt, the Lehigh County Republican chairman. The crowed booed, jeered and hissed at the very thought. Then another speaker, Peg Ferraro, denounced the Democratic candidate's "background and affiliations", saying they were "questionable" and asking: "Do we know who his friends are?"

The remarks were later condemned by the McCain campaign as "inappropriate rhetoric, which distracts from the real questions of judgement, character, and experience".  more 

Obama raised four times as much as John McCain from contributions less than $200.

Source BBC

Tracking campaign finance

FINANCIAL OVERVIEW as of 31 July 2008



Barack Obama has raised more money than John McCain partly because of the excitement generated by the Democratic nomination battle. His donors had pressing reasons to donate, from January right through to June, while Mr McCain wrapped up the Republican nomination in March.
Mr McCain has decided to take public financing, which means that from 1 September he has a maximum of $84m [£45m] to spend on his campaign. The McCain campaign is no longer accepting donations, except to its compliance fund - money to pay for lawyers, accountants and other expenses involved in maintaining compliance with federal election laws. The Republican National Committee, however, can still raise money to support the McCain campaign.
Barack Obama is the first candidate not to take public financing since the system was introduced in the mid-1970s. He will have no spending limit.
The Obama campaign has also broken the mould of US election finance by making big efforts to attract small donors. As a result Mr Obama has raised almost four times as much as John McCain from donors contributing less than $200. More