John McCain gave Barack Obama a gift when he couldn’t remember how many houses he owned.
The Obama campaign immediately put together a scathing ad. Obama has also been having a field day with this on the campaign trail, working in McCain’s other comment that $5 million per year was a good definition of “rich” in America.
The theme is simple – McCain is the one that’s out of touch.
The pundits who think Obama has been unwilling to punch back just aren’t paying attention.
John McCain’s inability to remember the number of houses he owns is all over the news today. This isn’t a surprise. He makes blunder on a daily basis, and the last thing McCain needs is more attention.
The McCain campaign is desperate to make the campaign about Obama because McCain is a sure loser if the spotlight is on him.
The Obama campaign is starting to ratchet up attacks on John McCain, taking on a presumed strength in his foreign policy experience.
John McCain likes to talk tough, but talking tough is not always the best approach. Also, the country is wearly of war, and McCain’s willingness to think of military options first may not sit well with some voters.
The Obama camapign has plenty of ammunition here. McCain was itching for a fight with Iraq, as he made clear in the late 90’s and again immediately following 9/11, even before the Bush administration started speaking publicly about that option. He has taken a bellicose approach towards Iran as well.
Bottom line – can the Obama camapign paint McCain as an angry warmonger? Based on today’s comments, it looks like they’re heading in this direction.
In an apparent effort to regain the offensive, the Obama campaign launched a broad attack on McCain today, portraying him as reckless on foreign policy, a hot-head who’s too willing to use force and not willing enough to apprise himself of facts on the ground before urging military action.
On a conference call with reporters just now, senior Obama foreign policy adviser Susan Rice argued that there is “a pattern here of recklessness” when it comes to McCain’s approach to various national security issues. She pointed out that McCain reacted too quickly with “aggressive and bellicose” rhetoric on the Russia-Georgia crisis, and contrasted that with Obama’s measured response to the dust-up.
Richard Clarke was also on the call.
Clarke joins in on slamming “quick draw McCain,” calling him “reckless,” “trigger-happy” and “discredited.”
Obama also has some cover here, as a recent poll shows voters believe that John McCain is running a negative camapign by a 6-1 margin.
The angst on the web over the tightening of the race is starting to match the hype from the old media. Many sober bloggers like Josh Marshall are getting nervous, and others are chiming in. Meanwhile, you have Chris Matthews announcing that the race is “tied” based on a poll that has the Obama leading by 5 points.
Of course the race has tightened, and that makes all of us a little uneasy. But there are several things to keep in mind. McCain has been hammering Obama, and Obama has just come off a one-week vacation. Obama has generally had three bad weeks, as McCain found a good issue in drilling and Russia invaded Georgia, placing national security back in the spotlight.
Now, what is happening out there? Yes, the race is tightening. Barack’s numbers are coming down a little, and that is a concern. Yet McCain’s number are NOT GOING UP. There’s a price to pay for his tactics, and Obama and the press are running with that argument. It will take a toll on McCain over time. His “angry old man” image will not play well as the camapign goes on. McCain has basically repeated the Clinton “kitchen sink” strategy, and the result has basically been the same. Obama gets hurt a little, but he still stays ahead. The McCain people have to be worried that they haven’t been able to pull ahead, let alone take the lead.
There’s no doubt the Obama camapign needs to ratchet up the attacks. They’ve started to take shots at McCain, and they’ve run some decent negative ads. They need to get tougher, but everyone needs to understand that we’re still in the middle of summer. Their best attacks need should be rolled out during the convention and in early September when everyone is playing attention.
I will get more specific in a future post, but we heard next to nothing about health care (like pre-existing conditions) or social security. McCain is very vulnerable on both points. Expect a big push on both issues, with Hillary Clinton being one of the lead attackers on these points.
Obama needed to survive the inevitable summer onslaught. With the convention starting next week, he appears to have done so.
Last month John McCain acknowledged that he doesn’t use a computer and that he never did a Google search. And, he wants to run the United States in the 21st century. I know, he has people who can do that for him, but it raises the question of whether this man is completely out of touch with the modern economy. It’s even more galling when one considers that McCain and his attack team are trying to portray Obama as the elitist.
And it’s an amazing country where an Arizona multimillionaire can attack a Chicago South Sider as an elitist and hope to make it stick. The Chicagoan was brought up by a single mom who had big ambitions for him, and he got scholarshipped into Harvard Law and was made president of the law review, all of it on his own hook, whereas the Arizonan is the son of an admiral and was ushered into Annapolis though an indifferent student, much like the Current Occupant, both of them men who are very lucky that their fathers were born before they were. The Chicagoan, who grew up without a father, wrote a book on his own, using a computer. The Arizonan hired people to write his for him. But because the Chicagoan can say what he thinks and make sense and the Arizonan cannot do that for more than 30 seconds at a time, the old guy is hoping to portray the skinny guy as arrogant.
Good luck with that, sir.
Meanwhile, the casual revelation last month that McCain has never figured out how to use a computer and has never sent e-mail or Googled is rather startling. It’s like admitting that you’ve never clipped your own toenails or that you didn’t know that toothpaste comes out of a tube because your valet always did that for you. It’s like being amazed at the sight of a supermarket scanner. What world does McCain live in? Where does he keep his sense of curiosity? My 94-year-old mother has sent e-mail. Does somebody plan to show him how it’s done and will they explain to him what “LOL” means?
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