Heading off another Swiftboat attack

A few months ago, John McCain went on TV and denounced Swift Boat-style character attacks. He even promised the audience he could put a stop to them.

What a difference a few months make.

The Swift Boaters are back -- spending millions to attack Barack -- and the McCain campaign has welcomed them with open arms.

Yesterday, the McCain campaign issued a statement effectively endorsing and echoing the latest baseless attacks sponsored by former Swift Boat funder Harold Simmons.

Simmons' next generation Swift Boat group, The American Issues Project, is running a false, negative ad designed to smear Barack with the absurd insinuation that he is connected to terrorism.

We can't stop McCain and the Swift Boaters from spreading sleazy lies, but we can pressure the stations running the ads to follow basic standards of public broadcast.

Last week, committed supporters like you wrote more than 100,000 emails and made countless phone calls to TV stations in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, and Michigan.

This week, we're putting pressure on advertisers supporting these stations to withdraw their ads and take their money elsewhere.

Write to national advertisers on these TV stations and tell them not to support this garbage.

John McCain could step up and run the clean campaign he promised.

Simmons is not only the new Swift Boat group's top funder, he's one of McCain's top funders. The founder of the group even used to work for McCain. McCain has their phone numbers -- all he has to do is call.

But instead, McCain has backpedaled on his promise -- making a conscious choice to use the same old politics that George Bush used to get elected.

We won't be swift-boated again.

TV stations may want the revenue from these ads, but most other corporations know it's bad for business to be associated with this kind of malicious and controversial smear. Both CNN and Fox News have refused to run the ad.

Help make sure this trash doesn't pollute another election. Let the other advertisers know they can't be seen to support this kind of politics:

http://my.barackobama.com/advertisers

Keep fighting the good fight,

Obama Action Wire