Obama's Attack Watch Campaign

President Obama’s re-election campaign team recently set up a new website called AttackWatch.com. It is designed to counter negative statements made about the President by republican presidential candidates and conservatives. The site is basically checking the facts said by people such as Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and often the republican commentator Glenn Beck. The site is used to “fight back” against attacks and set straight false statements being said with evidence. Within just twenty- four hours of the sites launch it has already caused a stir. Conservatives all over are mocking the site saying it shows how thin skinned the Obama administration is. The color Scheme of the site is black and red with thick bold letters. Many people mocking the site say it is supposed to look scary and intimidating. On the site it says things like, “Get the facts. Fight the smears.” The site offers Obama supporters an efficient way to "report an attack," and promises "when another unfounded attack surfaces, we'll arm you with the truth." The site also has a twitter account for supporters to submit “attacks” made on the President but many conservatives have just ridiculed this. The conservative bloggers that have made a mockery of it saying it makes Obama look like a “creepy authoritarian nut job.”

Attack Watch is similar to online efforts launched in the 2008 campaign, Fight The Smears. Despite all the negative response from the conservatives, 100,000 people signed up for the site in the first 24 hours, according to deputy press secretary Katie Hogan. Hogan said, “This site is a tool providing our supporters with the facts they need to fight back against lies and distortions about the President’s record.” However, it does seem that this tool for the Obama campaign has backfired becoming something for the conservatives to used against the Obama 2012 (The Video below is a parody commercial for Attack Watch).

One of the controversies of the site is many people think it shows Obama outwardly promoting people to spy on private citizens and it makes him seem paranoid. I don’t think that this is Obama’s intention but the site does seem to come off that way. With it’s red bold letters on a black background with a shaded in photo of Romney makes him seem like some kind of criminal, it just feels over the top and dishonest which is obviously not the image I think the Obama campaign wants to show.