It will probably backfire against every Democratic politicians that did not vote to condemn that ad in the Cornyn amendment also.
25 Democratic Senators will live to regret voting against that amendment.
Rasmussen shows that 58% of Americans disapproved of the ad making false accusations against General Petraeus and only 23% approve.
Twenty-three percent (23%) of Americans approve of an ad run in the New York Times “that referred to General Petraeus as General Betray Us?” A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 58% disapproved. Those figures include 12% who Strongly Approve and 42% who Strongly Disapprove.
Self-identified liberals were evenly divided—45% approve and 39% disapprove. However, only 19% of moderate voters approve while 62% disapprove.
It gets worse for MoveOn.org and the Democrats:
Forty-seven percent (47%) of all adults say that “stunts like the MoveOn.org ad” hurt the cause they believe in. Only 12% believe they help the cause while 17% say there is no impact. Twenty-four percent (24%) are not sure. Again, political liberals are divided with 27% saying they help and 32% taking the opposite view. Fifty percent (50%) of moderates and 57% of conservatives say that these sorts of events hurt the cause the group is trying to promote.
Captain's Quarters explains how the news gets even worse from looking at the cross tabs over at Rasmussen.
The NYT has also been seeing fallout from placing that ad and offering MoveOn a major discount for the ad.
This Rasmussen polls follows a Gallup poll that showed that General Petraeus took a 9 point jump in approval after his testimony, going from 52% before he testified to 61% after he testified.
According to LA Times, MoveOn is not only feeling the heat from their pathetic attempt to discredit a General that has served his country with honor for over 35 years, but that MoveOn is also a tad touchy about the subject.
MoveOn.org's excessively discounted broadside against General David Petraeus in the New York Times two weeks ago won't rank as its most successful tactic. The full-page nastygram appears not only to have solidified Republican opposition in the Senate for proposals to curtail the Iraq war effort, but also to have shaken the group's rich Hollywood funding base.Looks like MoveOn can dish out the attacks but cannot take them.So it's not too surprising that the liberal advocacy group would be a mite touchy from all the blowback online, even though it should be used to the abuse by now. So touchy, in fact, that it's been sending out cease-and-desist letters to CafePress, a website that lets people offer custom-designed t-shirts, coffee mugs and the like for sale. Last week it demanded that the site remove eight items, arguing that they violated MoveOn's merchandising trademarks.
Trademark law doesn't confer monopoly rights over all uses of a registered phrase or symbol, however, and it wasn't created simply to protect the trademark owner's interests. Instead, it's designed to protect consumers against being misled or confused about brands. The courts have repeatedly ruled in favor of parodies and critiques; that's why www.famousbrandnamesucks.com doesn't violate famousbrandname's trademark. And most, if not all, of the items targeted by MoveOn were clearly designed to razz it, not to trick buyers into thinking they were the group's products.
Beyond that, it's amazing that MoveOn would try to squelch political speech. That's another clear purpose of the targeted items. Take, for example, this message on a t-shirt designed by a lifelong Democrat from Southern California:
General Petraeus has done more for this country than MoveOn.org. MoveOn.org, the worst friend a Democrat could have! Move Away from Move On!
To its credit, CafePress refused to take down five bumper stickers, and it reinstated a t-shirt that it had taken down briefly in response to MoveOn's initial request. "While we understand that negative commentary is unsavory, our shopkeepers’ parodies of the MoveOn.org trademark are permissible here, especially when one considers the First Amendment implications raised by the social and political importance of your organization, the policies it advocates, and the countervailing messages conveyed by the parodies," wrote Daniel Pontes of CafePress to Carrie Olson, MoveOn's chief operating officer. Olson had been the one requesting the takedown.
Poor things.
Reminds me of the saying, watch what you ask for, you might just get it.
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