WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Obama Goes Negative To Sidestep His Sorry Record. “‘[I]f you don’t have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare the voters. If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.’ That is what Barack Obama said when he accepted his party’s presidential nomination in 2008. Four years later, it reads like a prophetic description of his re-election campaign.”