Posted on Sat, Sep. 13, 2008
DOVER, N.H. - With national polls showing John McCain pulling ahead in the presidential race, Democrat Barack Obama yesterday pushed his campaign to a new level of counterpunching "on the issues that matter" and directed his running mate to be tougher on their Republican opponents.
Some jittery Democrats have implored Obama and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. to fight back harder, and Obama's camp pledged "speed and ferocity" in that effort.
"You know, I'm not going to be making up lies about John McCain," Obama told undecided voters in Dover. But he dipped into history, citing an oft-repeated phrase: "If you don't stop lying about me, I'm going to have to start telling the truth about you."
"That's what we're going to do," Obama said.
Dover resident Glenn Grasso asked Obama, "When and how are you going to start fighting back against attack ads and the smear campaigns?"
"Our ads have been pretty tough," Obama said. "I'm going to respond with the truth."
Obama has called McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a "phenomenon" and said she has given her ticket a boost. But his aides say McCain is vulnerable to criticism because he has stretched the truth in recent comments and ads, and they say Palin was shaky on foreign policy in an ABC News interview.
"Today is the first day of the rest of the campaign," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said yesterday. "We will respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks and we will take the fight to him, but we will do it on the big issues that matter to the American people."
Plouffe said that Biden "will be integral to that effort, both in pushing back on the lies that we'll continue to see from our opponents, and in keeping the debate focused on delivering for everyday Americans."
'The last 26 years'
Vice presidential candidates often play the role of attacker. But many Democrats feel their party's last two nominees for that job, John Edwards and Joseph Lieberman, were too passive.
The newest Obama TV ad gets personal and makes a none-too-subtle dig at McCain's age. It shows McCain at a hearing in the early 1980s, wearing giant glasses and an out-of-style suit. Other images include a disco ball, clunky phone, outdated computer and Rubik's Cube. "Things have changed in the last 26 years," the announcer says, "but McCain hasn't."
"He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an e-mail, still doesn't understand the economy, and favors $200 billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class," the ad says. It closes with a photo of McCain standing with President Bush. "After one president who was out of touch," the announcer says, "we just can't afford more of the same."
'Disrespectful'
McCain has said that he relies on his wife and staff to work the computer for him.
Another new Obama ad repeats criticisms of McCain for having current and former prominent lobbyists on his campaign staff. A third new ad is more positive, highlighting Obama's change message and saying he will provide better health care and tax breaks.
Republican National Committee spokesman Alex Conant said Obama was "trying to destroy" McCain and Palin with personal attacks.
McCain, meanwhile, released a new ad saying Obama has been "disrespectful" in his treatment of Palin, who seems to be making inroads among female voters in several states.
Democrats said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would campaign for him at two stops tomorrow in Ohio.
In Dover yesterday, Obama rebutted McCain's assertions that the Democrat would raise taxes on working-class families. "I pledge that under my plan, no one making less than $250,000 a year will see any type of tax increase," he said. "Not income tax, not capital-gains taxes, not any kind of tax."
Some analysts say McCain's flurry of claims and criticisms this week seemed to catch Obama off guard.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a University of Pennsylvania authority on political communications, said Obama erred by focusing on one dubious McCain assertion - that Obama had indirectly insulted Palin by using a phrase about putting lipstick on a pig - while the Republicans hit him with a more damaging claim misrepresenting his position on sex education for kindergartners.
"When someone says you want to teach kids about sex, you should counterattack immediately, and they didn't," Jamieson said. "They said they were outraged, but the outrage was lost among the outrage about lipstick. The Obama campaign didn't pivot fast enough when that ad went up."
Bidens Release Financial Records
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill, yesterday released a decade of their personal financial records.
The couple earned $319,853 in 2007. Joseph Biden reported $161,708 in income from the U.S. Senate and $71,000 in royalties for his book,
Promises to Keep.
Jill Biden earned $66,546 at her teaching job at Delaware Technical and Community College.
They paid $72,787
in federal taxes last year, including $2,721
in alternative
minimum taxes.
They claimed $995 in deductions for charitable giving, about triple what they deducted in any of the nine previous years.
Over the last decade
they reported giving
a yearly average of
$369 to charity.
A Biden spokesman said they have given more
to charity than they claimed on their taxes.
- AP, Bloomberg News
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