E.J. Dionne: Growing Desperate, McCain And Palin Take The Low Road.
Growing desperate, McCain and Palin take the low road
E.J. Dionne
WASHINGTON -- Just when the presidential campaign was focusing intensely on serious matters, John McCain and Sarah Palin want to turn it into a guilt-by-association knife fight. It's not going to work.
You can understand why McCain and Palin prefer to discuss the 1960s and to tie Barack Obama to events that happened when the Democratic nominee was 8. Talking about what's happening right now turns out to be lethal to McCain's candidacy. Voters are frustrated and angry about the economic crisis, and the market fiascoes of the last few weeks have reminded them why they want to toss Republicans out of the White House.
The economic news transformed the electoral landscape. States where Obama led narrowly are now firmly in his camp. States that were either close or in McCain's column are now tilting Obama's way.
Ohio, where I paid a visit on the eve of Tuesday's debate, is Ground Zero of the McCain implosion. Ohio is a state McCain absolutely must win. But recent polls, including a new Washington Post/ABC News survey, show Obama with a clear lead. Local Democrats sense that a contest they once feared losing has taken a decisive turn in Obama's direction because the economy is "front and center," said Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat whose district includes Youngstown.
"People are listening more, they're more open to what he (Obama) and his surrogates are saying, and they don't want four more years," Ryan said. Many have speculated that some white voters would be reluctant to support Obama because of his race. But Ryan said the new seriousness about the economy means that "they are so far beyond color right now, they care about who is best for the job."
No wonder that McCain lieutenant Greg Strimple told The Washington Post that the Republican side is "looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis." That is to say, they want to discuss something -- anything -- other than the most important issue in the election.
And so it is back to the 1960s. Palin, not satisfied that she has shown herself to be catastrophically uninformed about most issues, now wants everyone to know that she is happy to be Joe McCarthy in heels -- "the heels are on, the gloves are off," she declared in Florida.
McCain put Palin on the point of his effort to highlight and exaggerate Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, the veteran of the violent Weather Underground of the Vietnam era who has become a community activist in Obama's Chicago neighborhood.
And Palin cast matters in the most offensive way possible on Saturday, accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists." This outrageous formulation was branded in a news analysis by Douglass K. Daniel of The Associated Press as "unsubstantiated." He said Palin's words "carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret."
But apparently McCain regrets nothing. With the economy sinking his chances, the Republican wants to narrow the contest to Obama's personality and his past. He is trying to turn Obama into an alien and mysterious figure.
"Who is the real Barack Obama?" McCain asked earlier this week on the campaign trail. Presumably McCain doesn't want voters to believe their own eyes on this question. He wants them to ignore the Obama who reacted calmly and deliberately during the financial crisis while McCain flailed around in search of a new angle.
Putting aside their lack of merit, the McCain-Palin attacks have come too late. They smack of desperation and are out of sync with voters who want a no-nonsense discussion of how to move the country out of economic chaos, not a replay of cultural conflicts that seem so 40 years ago.
Oh, yes, and about the McCain aide's phrase about "turning a page" on the financial crisis: Maybe he didn't realize he was mimicking Obama's signature line in the early part of the campaign -- "it's time to turn the page" -- about the need to move beyond the divisions of the past. If voters need to be reminded about how tired they are of consultant-driven, character-assassinating, us-versus-them politics, the current drift of McCain's campaign will do the trick.
Tuesday night's town meeting format was hardly an ideal venue for further assaults on Obama. Voters want candidates to talk about problems and how to solve them. And that raises the question of the moment: Who is the real John McCain? The man who used to tout himself as a problem-solver, or the desperate candidate lurching from strategy to strategy and attack to attack?
E.J. Dionne is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is postchat@aol.com.
Editor's comment: NO kidding -- why would John McCain and Sarah Pallin want to give Barack Obama and Joe Biden a chance to hit them on the "Keating Five" issue (an issue that concerns the SORRY economy) -- the one issue that infuriates voters?
GEEZ.
I have said it before and I'll say it again: whoever is advising John McCain needs to return some of his fees to the campaign!
E.J. Dionne
WASHINGTON -- Just when the presidential campaign was focusing intensely on serious matters, John McCain and Sarah Palin want to turn it into a guilt-by-association knife fight. It's not going to work.
You can understand why McCain and Palin prefer to discuss the 1960s and to tie Barack Obama to events that happened when the Democratic nominee was 8. Talking about what's happening right now turns out to be lethal to McCain's candidacy. Voters are frustrated and angry about the economic crisis, and the market fiascoes of the last few weeks have reminded them why they want to toss Republicans out of the White House.
The economic news transformed the electoral landscape. States where Obama led narrowly are now firmly in his camp. States that were either close or in McCain's column are now tilting Obama's way.
Ohio, where I paid a visit on the eve of Tuesday's debate, is Ground Zero of the McCain implosion. Ohio is a state McCain absolutely must win. But recent polls, including a new Washington Post/ABC News survey, show Obama with a clear lead. Local Democrats sense that a contest they once feared losing has taken a decisive turn in Obama's direction because the economy is "front and center," said Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat whose district includes Youngstown.
"People are listening more, they're more open to what he (Obama) and his surrogates are saying, and they don't want four more years," Ryan said. Many have speculated that some white voters would be reluctant to support Obama because of his race. But Ryan said the new seriousness about the economy means that "they are so far beyond color right now, they care about who is best for the job."
No wonder that McCain lieutenant Greg Strimple told The Washington Post that the Republican side is "looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis." That is to say, they want to discuss something -- anything -- other than the most important issue in the election.
And so it is back to the 1960s. Palin, not satisfied that she has shown herself to be catastrophically uninformed about most issues, now wants everyone to know that she is happy to be Joe McCarthy in heels -- "the heels are on, the gloves are off," she declared in Florida.
McCain put Palin on the point of his effort to highlight and exaggerate Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, the veteran of the violent Weather Underground of the Vietnam era who has become a community activist in Obama's Chicago neighborhood.
And Palin cast matters in the most offensive way possible on Saturday, accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists." This outrageous formulation was branded in a news analysis by Douglass K. Daniel of The Associated Press as "unsubstantiated." He said Palin's words "carried a racially tinged subtext that John McCain himself may come to regret."
But apparently McCain regrets nothing. With the economy sinking his chances, the Republican wants to narrow the contest to Obama's personality and his past. He is trying to turn Obama into an alien and mysterious figure.
"Who is the real Barack Obama?" McCain asked earlier this week on the campaign trail. Presumably McCain doesn't want voters to believe their own eyes on this question. He wants them to ignore the Obama who reacted calmly and deliberately during the financial crisis while McCain flailed around in search of a new angle.
Putting aside their lack of merit, the McCain-Palin attacks have come too late. They smack of desperation and are out of sync with voters who want a no-nonsense discussion of how to move the country out of economic chaos, not a replay of cultural conflicts that seem so 40 years ago.
Oh, yes, and about the McCain aide's phrase about "turning a page" on the financial crisis: Maybe he didn't realize he was mimicking Obama's signature line in the early part of the campaign -- "it's time to turn the page" -- about the need to move beyond the divisions of the past. If voters need to be reminded about how tired they are of consultant-driven, character-assassinating, us-versus-them politics, the current drift of McCain's campaign will do the trick.
Tuesday night's town meeting format was hardly an ideal venue for further assaults on Obama. Voters want candidates to talk about problems and how to solve them. And that raises the question of the moment: Who is the real John McCain? The man who used to tout himself as a problem-solver, or the desperate candidate lurching from strategy to strategy and attack to attack?
E.J. Dionne is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. His e-mail address is postchat@aol.com.
Editor's comment: NO kidding -- why would John McCain and Sarah Pallin want to give Barack Obama and Joe Biden a chance to hit them on the "Keating Five" issue (an issue that concerns the SORRY economy) -- the one issue that infuriates voters?
GEEZ.
I have said it before and I'll say it again: whoever is advising John McCain needs to return some of his fees to the campaign!
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