McCain unleashes 'pitbull with lipstick' as Obama moves ahead
Published Monday October 6th, 2008
WASHINGTON - John McCain's presidential campaign is expected to get nastier and more personal in the final four weeks until election day as Barack Obama makes dramatic inroads in the key battleground states that will determine who wins the White House.
The McCain campaign is reportedly trying to shift focus away from the perpetual thorn in the Arizona senator's side - the U.S. economic crisis - and aggressively attack Obama's character, his friendships and his ability to run the country.
"We're going to get a little tougher," an unnamed Republican strategist told the Washington Post this past weekend. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here."
Picking away at Obama's experience and judgment was a battle plan that was working well for McCain in the summer, but was effectively neutralized after his surprise pick of Sarah Palin, the junior governor from Alaska, as his running mate five weeks ago.
McCain's judgment in choosing the much-ridiculed Palin has been consistently questioned since her arrival on the scene, and questions about whether she has the experience to serve as vice-president have dogged his campaign.
Some observers doubt that resurrecting the tactic against Obama is going to have much of an impact on fading Republican fortunes amid the economic crisis plaguing the United States and Obama's increasingly presidential-like performances on the national stage.
"McCain is running in a very toxic environment for Republicans and going on the attack is a sign that they're in trouble," John Geer, author of In Defence of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns, said Sunday from Nashville, Tenn.
"Americans aren't stupid. To come back to it now, after Obama has been looking very presidential, and to do so when the polls show you down seven points and you're pulling out of Michigan - it's a tactic that will seem suspicious to most Americans."
Nonetheless the plan already seemed in full force this past weekend.
Following what Republicans believe was Palin's winning debate performance against Senator Joe Biden last week, the McCain campaign seemingly unleashed their "pitbull with lipstick" on Obama.
On a campaign stop over the weekend, Palin suggested Obama is "palling around with terrorists."
"It's important to talk about how Barack Obama kicked off his political career in the guy's living room," she said Sunday.
She was referring to Obama's relationship with William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground. Obama used to do community work with him years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for the Illinois senator early in his career.
Obama long ago denounced Ayers for his radical background.
But his campaign was giving as good as it got on the weekend, releasing an attack ad against McCain that accused him of being "erratic" in the face of the economic crisis.
"That's a not-very-subtle attack on McCain's age," Geer said.
The stepped-up assaults come as the two men prepare to appear in another debate this week - this one a town-hall style event at Belmont University in Nashville. It's certain to produce fireworks, at least from an increasingly cantankerous McCain, who took the weekend off to regroup in Arizona.
The face-to-face encounter between the two rivals for the White House comes as Obama gains significant ground in battleground states, including some that were solidly Republican until recently.
In the state of Virginia alone, where voters have not elected a Democratic president since John F. Kennedy, some polls are suggesting the Illinois senator has a whopping nine-point lead over Republican John McCain.
McCain's brother, Joe, found himself in hot water on the weekend after jokingly referring to the northern part of the state - where most Obama supporters reside - as a "communist country."
Obama has also opened up leads in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota and Ohio and is gaining steady ground in Pennsylvania, Indiana and North Carolina. Except for Minnesota, all of those states went Republican in the 2004 election.
In a surprise move late last week, the McCain campaign gave up on the state of Michigan, pulling out money and organizers in order to focus on states where they're holding steady.
"McCain has got a huge head wind that he's confronting, and he's going to have to throw out 20 things and hope that some of them stick to the wall," Geer said.
"The big question is how will the news media cover the accusations. Are they going to decide that some of those things are legitimate? A key player in this game is going to be the news media, and this could backfire badly for McCain if they're not credible attacks."
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