McCain vs. Obama: Character debate
Posted: Monday, October 06, 2008 9:25 AM by Mark Murray
In her harshest attacks since being selected as McCain’s running mate, Palin sharply criticized Obama over the weekend for the Illinois senator’s tenuous ties to the ‘60s radical Bill Ayers. “This is not a man who sees America as you and I see America,” she said of Obama. “We see Americas as a force for good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism. Our opponent is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who target their own country."
The AP's Daniel writes on Palin's "palling around" comment, "[T]hough she may have scored a political hit each time, her attack was unsubstantiated and carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret… Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee ‘palling around’ with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?”
"In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate. Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as "not like us" is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American."
"Obama launched a counterattack yesterday, saying his rival was more interested in a smear campaign than fixing the economy," Reuters writes. "But John McCain's supporters said they would continue to push the issue of Obama's character."
The Politico writes that the Obama campaign today “will launch a multimedia campaign to draw attention to the involvement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the “Keating Five” savings-and-loan scandal of 1989-91, which blemished McCain’s public image and set him on his course as a self-styled reformer. Pushing back against what it calls ‘guilt-by-association’ tactics by McCain, the Obama campaign is e-mailing millions of supporters a link to a website, KeatingEconomics.com, that will have a 13-minute documentary on the scandal beginning at noon Eastern time on Monday. The overnight e-mails urge recipients to pass the link on to friends.”
“The Obama campaign, including its surrogates appearing on radio and television, will argue that the deregulatory fervor that caused massive, cascading savings-and-loan collapses in the last ‘80s was pursued by McCain throughout his career, and helped cause the current credit crisis.”
McCain spokesman Brian Rogers responded, "The difference here is clear: John McCain has been open and honest about the Keating matter, and even the Democratic special counsel in charge recommended that Sen. McCain be completely exonerated. By contrast, Barack Obama has been fundamentally dishonest about his friendship and work with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, whose radical group bombed the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. Nor has Barack Obama come clean on his close friendship with Tony Rezko.”
Per Bloomberg’s Al Hunt, McCain’s “best chance for a turnaround is a national security crisis over the next four weeks that somehow persuades swing voters that his experience and credentials are essential.”
The McCain campaign is up with a new TV ad that hits Obama for once saying that US troops in Afghanistan are “just air-raiding villages and killing civilians." It goes: “Who is Barack Obama? He says our troops in Afghanistan are ‘... just air-raiding villages and killing civilians.’ How dishonorable.”
But here is what Obama said back in August: "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous problems there.”
And here’s the AP's Pickler's fact-check: "A check of the facts shows that Western forces have been killing civilians at a faster rate than the insurgents have been killing civilians… As of Aug. 1, the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can't be attributed to one party. Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed his concern about the civilian deaths during a meeting last week with President Bush."
Meanwhile, to counter the McCain camp’s Ayers attack, a new DNC Web video recycles this 2000 quote from McCain: “Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don't have much of a vision for the future or you're not ready to articulate it."
While some believe the Ayers attack is a little late, conservatives are happy it's finally out there. Writes Jennifer Rubin: "Was it a mistake for the McCain campaign to wait this late to go this route? Does it appear now to be a last-minute attempt to change the question?
Perhaps ‘yes’ on both. But regardless of whether it ‘works,’ it is important that
Obama and future candidates understand that their behavior (e.g. choosing to serve on
the Woods Fund which doled out money to ACORN and a host of radical groups), their
choice of associations (from Rezko to Ayers to Walsh) and their fundamental beliefs
expressed through not just speeches but deeds (e.g. supporting the philosophy and
goals of the Ayers-founded and led Annenberg Challenge) are open to scrutiny and
deserve a full vetting by the voters."
After a round of negative ads on health care, the Boston Globe compares the two plans:
The Globe tries to get into the weeds of McCain's health-care plan, looking at the pros and cons.
