Political rumors has been a big subject on on the D & D especially in this campaign season. I thought this was a pretty balanced look at them. From the AP http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27404513/?GT1=43001 Rumors increase in last days of campaigns With just days before the election, untruths spread virally over the InternetBarack Obama is not a member of a socialist party. John McCain is not a foreigner. Sarah Palin is not Trig's grandmother. And Joe Biden is not dropping out of the race. Oh, and they're not all having sordid affairs. But it's Rumor Season again in this country, and with just days to go before the election, both campaigns are frantically knocking down these rumors — often spreading virally on the Internet — along with a steady stream of other nasty hints and allegations that range from the questionable to the outrageous. One thing you can believe: It'll only get worse between now and Election Day. "With just days left to go in the campaign, it's use it or lose it time. If you're a candidate, now's the time to get it out, to sear it in voters minds just before they go to the voting booth," said UC Santa Cruz psychology professor Anthony Pratkanis, who researches propaganda and social influence. The trouble with rumors, as representatives at both campaigns said, is that even refuting them means they are repeated. Nonetheless, they said sometimes you have just to talk about it, explain why it's false, and move on. "It's obviously an unfortunate development that we've seen in this election season, more than in elections past, but ultimately we trust the voters and their good sense," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. Obama's spokesman Tommy Vietor said their strategy has been to "confront these rumors head-on" with a designated Web site — stopthesmears.com — and to make sure precinct captains are given factual information to counter the "ridiculous false rumors that have swirled in this campaign." "Our experience is that voters are smart, voters are resourceful," said Vietor. Recent rumors, mostly floated online and on conservative radio and television talk shows, have lately intensified about Obama and usually come in the form of questions. "Who wrote Obama's autobiography, `Dreams From My Father?'" asked conservative Web site and talk show hosts last week, hinting that the writing was so sophisticated and used similar styles, including "water metaphors," that radical William Ayers must have been the true author. He wasn't. Obama was. "Utter hogwash," said Obama organizers debunking the claim. Although this year's level of rumors has been ferocious and bizarre, the phenomenon of whisper campaigns, misinformation, and smears is as much a part of our nation's roots as elections themselves. Thomas Jefferson was accused of being anti-Christian; his opponents warned that he would destroy the religious fabric and values of the country and promote an orgy of rape, incest, and adultery. John Adams, opponents said, was pro-monarchy and was planning on marrying his son to the daughter of King George III. "These smears are a great American tradition, going back to our earliest contested elections," said Pratkanis. Eight years ago, McCain lost a strong lead in the South Carolina GOP primary, and possibly even the presidency, after what a campaign aide later described as "a textbook example of a smear." Using e-mails and push polls, Republican opponents spread the false rumor that his adopted Bangladeshi-born daughter was actually his biological and illegitimate black child. That lie was enough, observers said, to lose South Carolina. For the past two years, Obama faced the vast majority of false rumors in this long election season. But when Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin was tapped to be McCain's running mate, a deluge of rumors began about this little-known Republican from a remote state. Three days after her selection, reporters from a dozen national media organizations including the AP lined up at a Palmer, Alaska, courthouse counter and, one after another, paged through a divorce settlement of a friend of Palin's to see if she was named as the cause of their strife. She was not. But they've sought her baby's birth records, combed through her meeting minutes, and someone even hacked her private e-mail. Still the rumors haven't stopped. "Then things really went wild," said Gammel, who is on sabbatical this year. Her phone rang nonstop and thousands of e-mails poured in for which she set up an automatic response explaining that she was not the author of the letter and did not know if it was true. She said she tried, herself, to track the source of the rumor hoped someone would research it to find out whether it was true. More broadly, however, Gammel said she's much more careful about forwarding e-mails and reading rumors. "I certainly look at them more carefully," she said.
