Obama: Not the first punch, but the last
Posted: Monday, October 06, 2008 1:28 PM by Carrie Dann
From NBC's Lauren Appelbaum
During an interview on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, Obama responded to Palin's comments over the weekend, which linked the Illinois senator to 1960's radical William Ayres.
"Mr. Ayres is somebody who lives in Chicago," Obama told Roland Martin on the radio show. "And he engaged in these despicable acts 40 years ago when I was eight years old. I served on a board with him. And so now they are trying to use this as guilt by association."
Obama went on to say while he feels "the American people deserve better" and the candidates should instead be discussing the economy, he is not afraid to enter into a character debate with
McCain. "Mr. McCain's record, despite him calling himself a maverick, actually shows that he is continually somebody who relies on lobbyists for big oil and big corporations and that he makes decisions often times based on what these lobbyists tell him to do," Obama said. "And that, I think, is going to be a lot more relevant to the American people than what somebody who is tangentially related to me did when I was eight years old."
The Illinois senator also insisted that he will not let attacks go unanswered. "One of the things that we've done through this campaign, we don't throw the first punch but we'll throw the last," he said.
The Obama campaign is fighting back with a new website, which attacks McCain on his involvement with the Keating Five scandal.
"If the American people don't get the information that's relevant about these candidates and instead in the last four weeks, all they are hearing about are smears and swiftboat tactics, that can have an impact on the election," Obama said. "We've seen it before."
