Digest: October 8, 2008

By Dr. Kostadin Grozev, Associate Professor, Chair of Modern and Contemporary World History, Faculty of History, Sofia University

Keywords: U.S. Elections

McCain Changes Tactics?
Washington Post, October 8, 2008













Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, speaks as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., listens during a townhall-style presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Heading into last night's presidential debate, the expectation was the John McCain would continue the attacks begun by his running mate -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- on Barack Obama's character and, in particular, his relationship with former Weather Underground member Bil Ayers.

But, McCain never went there during the 90-minute debate, and two new advertisements launched today -- one by McCain's own campaign, the other by the Republican National Committee -- focus on casting Obama as a big spending liberal with no mention of Ayers.

McCain's new commercial -- entitled "Folks" -- notes that Obama had the most liberal voting record in the Senate and calls into question the Illinois Democrat's contention that Republicans are simply not telling the truth about his record.

The RNC's latest ad goes after Obama as a risky big spender, arguing that he supports a trillion dollars in new spending on top of the $700 billion financial bailout that went through Congress last week. "One trillion more?" read the white words on a black screen. "Sound crazy? It is."

Then on a conference call this morning organized by McCain's campaign, former Illinois Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R) attacked Obama -- as McCain had done last night -- as a rank party ideologue for whom bipartisanship was simply a word to say to get elected to things.

"For Senator Obama, reform and nonpartisanship is something to campaign on but not something he does when he actually gets into office," said Fitzgerald who served with the Illinois Democrat in the state legislature. Fitzgerald added that Obama was nothing more than "one of those state Senators from Chicago who viewed the Democratic Party as being right 100 percent of the time and the Republican party wrong 100 percent of the time."

While this coordinated attack on Obama is not without punch -- he is a liberal who supports more government spending at a time of national economic crisis -- it is not the sort of hard-core character hit in the paid media that many expected from the McCain campaign amid faltering poll numbers both in key battleground states and nationally.

And yet, the McCain campaign doesn't appear to have entirely abandoned the Ayers line of attack either. In an email this morning to reporters, the McCain campaign distributed a statement from John Murtagh whose house was fire-bombed by members of the Weather Underground in 1970. "Barack Obama may have been a child when William Ayers was plotting attacks against U.S. targets -- but I was one of those targets," said Murtagh. "Barack Obama's friend tried to kill my family."

What gives? How can McCain not even mention Ayers during last night's debate or in his latest ads, and yet Palin can continue to accuse Obama of "paling" around with terrorists on the stump and the Arizona Senator's campaign can put out a statement blasting the Democrat for his Ayers ties this morning?

The answer -- we think -- lies with the duality of McCain the man.

On the one hand, he is fiercely competitive, wants to win the presidency badly and believes he is far better qualified than Obama to be the next occupant of the White House.

On the other, McCain has NEVER been particularly comfortable carrying harshly negative, personal messages in campaigns -- always viewing himself as above that sort of lowest common denominator politics. His refusal to bring up Ayers last night is reflective of his distaste for the knife-fight aspects of politics.

And yet, with his campaign trailing in every meaningful battleground state and being outspent at a three to one clip, McCain is rapidly running out of time and opportunity to fundamentally alter this race.

Ayers may not be a silver bullet but a discussion over Obama's past associations is far better ground on which for McCain to fight than the current debate over the country's economic malaise. Simply putting out a statement on Ayers and hoping that the resultant free media delivers the message to voters is not good enough to change the subject, however.

Watch to see if McCain goes on TV with Ayers over the coming days. It's a gamble but one McCain may have no choice but to take.

Source: voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/10/mccain_changes_tactics.html