A Tale of Two Campaigns

This week marks yet another sad and strange turn of events that highlight the differences between the McCain and Obama campaigns: the handling of alleged attacks on campaign volunteers.

There's been a lot of press about McCain volunteer Ashley Todd's false claim that she was robbed & brutally attacked by an Obama supporter in response to seeing a McCain-Palin bumpersticker on her car. Immediately upon hearing the news, the McCain campaign, in the form of PA communications director Peter Feldman, was in contact with two media outlets embellishing the previously unvetted story in what can only be described as race-baiting. Both John McCain and Sarah Palin were in touch with Todd/her family to offer their support to the girl and the Obama campaign publicly offered well wishes for her speedy recovery and aprehension of the assailant. Now that it has been confirmed that Todd made the story up, the McCain campaign has remained mum and the wingnuts on the right are, of course, pushing stories that the Todd incident was really a nefarious plot by Obama supporters to make the McCain campaign look bad.

In contrast, Pam sadly reports that an Obama volunteer was attacked by a McCain supporter when she had the great misfortune of canvassing him at his home. The attacker admits to a heated verbal exchange that, regrettably, became physical when he pulled the victim's hair. When confessing, he expressed remorse for his actions. The media response to this attack has been measured, as has the Obama campaign's public statements on the matter:

"last night's unfortunate incident in Caledonia was isolated and extremely rare, and we are grateful our volunteer is doing well" WISN

UPDATE (26Oct08 - 19:48) - It just gets uglier as the day progresses. Via Phillybits, it looks like the College Republicans started the ball rolling in going to the press (OK, Drudge, but still) to promote the Ashley Todd attack story

TPM blogger "astral66" makes a very nice catch: since the photographer who took the picture first posted on Drudge (who had met Ashley Todd at a College Republicans mixer) only gave it to the police and the College Republicans, and since Drudge had it before there was any announcement from the police, guess who gave it to Drudge?

Tags: McShame Sarah Palin politics conservatism republican one very sick little girl one very sick little boy Obama Nancy Takehara

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