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Character attacks emerge in McCain-Obama race
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-07 11:12 ASHEVILLE, N.C. - The two men who supposedly exemplified a different kind of politics are engaged in an increasingly bitter campaign as character attacks are emerging to compete with issues like the troubled economy. With the election four weeks away, chances dimmed that Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama could reclaim the often lofty images they cultivated early in their presidential bids as their campaigns focused new attention Monday on decades-old events involving a former radical from Chicago and a convicted thrift owner from Arizona.
McCain's campaign added another figure when his running mate, Sarah Palin, said there should be more discussion of Obama's incendiary former pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
In Albuquerque, N.M., McCain delivered an unusually scathing broadside. He accused Obama of lying about McCain's efforts to regulate the home loan industry. And he suggested Obama is a mysterious figure who cannot be trusted. "Who is the real Barack Obama?" McCain said to a cheering crowd. "Ask such questions and all you get in response is another barrage of angry insults." Some analysts called the change in tone disappointing but predictable. Presidential candidates who are losing on policy issues often turn to character, they said. As McCain's poll standings fell along with the economy, his campaign began the new character criticisms and used Palin to spearhead the push. Obama's campaign didn't wait long to respond. Brookings Institution political scientist Thomas E. Mann said he had felt for months that McCain "would eventually have to try to undermine Obama as an acceptable choice for president and commander in chief." Key issues, he said, including "an economy in turmoil, an unpopular war and a politically discredited president are working powerfully against McCain and the Republican Party in general." Obama, meanwhile, has learned the lessons of Michael Dukakis and John Kerry. Those Democrats lost presidential elections after hesitating to counter hard-hitting and factually dubious attacks on their character and judgment. The shorthand terms for those attacks -- "Willie Horton" and "Swiftboating" -- have become a call-to-arms for Democratic activists who vow always to return fire with fire. "We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last," Obama said Monday on Tom Joyner's syndicated radio show. Several Democrats said on Sunday talk shows that Obama's campaign would revisit McCain's long-ago involvement in the thrift scandal if the personal attacks on him continued. Within hours, the Obama campaign released a memo and Web video doing just that. Obama and McCain have hit each other at personal levels before. But the vitriol increased dramatically Saturday, when Palin repeatedly raised Obama's relationship with former 1960s radical Bill Ayers. |
