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Obama on McCain: It’s about cynicism, not racism

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The moment the McCain campaign worked to inject race into the presidential campaign, the media seemed, for lack of a better word, relieved. It was as if news outlets wanted desperately to focus on race, but needed to wait until there was some kind of news peg to work off of.

Almost immediately, the Obama campaign has been trying to downplay the notion that there’s a “story” here. On Thursday, the campaign issued a statement: “Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue, but he does believe they’re using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign, and those are the issues he’ll continue to talk about.”

As questions persist, Obama is still trying to convince reporters that they’re missing the point here — this isn’t about racism, it’s about cynicism.

Barack Obama told reporters in Titusville, Fla., on Saturday that he is at “peace” with a McCain campaign ad seeking to portray him as an airhead celebrity in the mold of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.

“Let me be clear,” Obama said in response to a question about the injection of race into the campaign.

“In no way do I think that John McCain’s campaign was being racist; I think they’re cynical, and I think they want to distract people from talking about the real issues.

“And so I’m at … peace with the Britney and Paris Web ad. Or [the campaign’s charge that] somehow I wouldn’t go visit the troops unless I had reporters with me — which every reporter who was on the trip knows is absolutely not true….

“Their team is good at creating distractions and engaging in negative attacks and planting doubts about people. And what we’ve got to do is make sure that we are very clear to the American people about how my policies will make a difference in their lives.

Obama concluded, “I am absolutely confident that the people in Union, Mo., Jacksonville, Fla., or any other city or town across the country, at the end the day, [are] going to be making their decisions based on what they think is going to be best for their lives and their children’s lives.”

I certainly hope so.

Obama added:

“I don’t come out of central casting. I’m young. I’m new to the national scene. My name is Barack Obama. I do not have the typical biography of a presidential candidate,” he said.

“What that means is that I’m sort of unfamiliar and people are still trying to get a fix on who I am, where I come from,” he said. “What has been an approach of the McCain campaign is to say ‘he’s risky.'”

He said McCain’s campaign had been taken over by former associates of Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s former political adviser, and he was clearly planning a negative campaign approach.

“They are very good at negative campaigns. They are not so good at governing,” he said of McCain’s team. “We have seen this movie before.”

I actually like this line of argument quite a bit. Bush was great at negative attacks; McCain is great at negative attacks. Bush could win elections but couldn’t govern; McCain can win this election but has no idea how to govern.

There was also this exchange.

Obama was asked if he, too, isn’t engaging in negative campaigning, and how is his negative talk different from McCain’s negative talk.

“This is the classic dilemma of politics,” Obama replied. “We get four or five shots in a row (assertions by McCain), that I would rather lose a war so that I can win a campaign, that I am not willing to visit the troops, that I somehow am full of myself, that I’m an empty-headed celebrity, whatever repeated attacks have been launched this week, so when I say, boy those are kind of silly arguments, the press says, isn’t that being negative. Well no, I’m describing what their strategy has been for the last week… I’m just stating the facts….

ABC News, I think he’s talking to you.

Comments

  • Equal Opportunity Cynic

    says:

    I think his message is just perfect to lock up the “capable of exercising common sense” vote.

    For the sake of this country, I just hope that constituency is big enough to win the election. If not, a country that accepts three terms of George W. Bush deserves the consequences.

  • Steve

    says:

    Obama will have the “common sense” constituency sewn up—but in addition, he’ll have those who do not want to be viewed as “not having common sense” (sort of an inverted, Emperor-has-no-clothes scenario). The Bush-McCain cartel gambit—the “no-matter-how-bad-off-you-are-it’ll-get-worse-if” stunt—will not work a third time, because they’ve exploited their own base for personal gain.

    That base will turn on them like a starved pack of hyenas on a crippled member of its own pack, come November—which is why they’re so desperate to demolish Obama’s credibility. They can’t win; they can only hope to make Obama lose worse than they do by getting his support to stay home on November 4.

    That hope will be proven a false hope, in equal measure to the falsity of Bush-McCain….

  • kevo

    says:

    It would behoove us all if our MSM personalities would refrain from CHANTING talking points buzz words incessently 24/7. A quick e to all the outlets, something to the like of – SHUT UP! – may suffice if done in mass 24/7 back at the bubble heads.

    I’m learning more and more of Obama, and I like what I am learning! The MSM isn’t getting that part of the story at this moment. Will they by November? -Kevo

  • Different Jeff

    says:

    The press is fond of “maverick McCain” and has because he has always been a good story, the rogue republican, the stalwart war hero. This week we saw early evidence of a press “WTF?” with the negative and rather bizarre campaign ads. At some point, possibly after the conventions, the press will realize that the story they REALLY REALLY want to cover is not the battle of two atypical candidates (Obama vs Clinton, Obama vs McCain) but that of the election of the first black president. At that point the gaffes-a-plenty from McCain which have been mostly shrugged off to now will be parsed and discussed as every sneeze Obama makes now is. And then the story will finally get out to the low information voters that the empty suit in this race isn’t the young guy. And then McCain will lose. At least I can hope, eh?

  • R.T.Thaddeus

    says:

    I would also like to see Obama focus more on the difference between Dems and Repubs. He could really use his superior communication skills to point out that he is the standard bearer of the Democratic Party of FDR that gave us Social Security, and Banking Regulation Reform, of LBJ who gave us Medicare and signed the historic Civil Rights Act and Bill Clinton who gave us eight years of prosperity and a balance budged. McCain represents the Republican party that gave us Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression and George W. Bush who gave us eight years of economic disaster and a velvet police state.

  • zoe from pittsburgh

    says:

    Apparently Obama has started running with this– http://www.lowroadexpress.com

    McCain’s recent attacks have revealed him to be a liar as well as a hypocrite. “Straight Talk Express” and his repeated promise of a “respectful campaign” are entirely bullshit. I think Obama needs to take it one step further and say that McCain’s recent campaign attacks are beneath him and are an insult to the American public.

    Obama’s presser this morning revealed that he is ready to respond to McCain’s attacks as well as push back on the press themselves when they’re being stupid.

    Let’s just hope this works.

  • tomj

    says:

    An easy line of attack for Obama, that would focus attention on McCain would be to suggest that McCain would run his White House like he runs his campaign: disorganized, full of lobbyists, and like a typical Republican.

    This is something that the media already has focused on in the past. I think Obama has started to move in this direction by saying: “They are very good at negative campaigns. They are not so good at governing,”

    Here is the story: McCain’s campaign is disorganized, basically he is a disorganized version of George Bush, which is dangerous. There is continuous infighting among several factions and there is no way to predict what his policy positions will be once he is elected, they might even change from day to day if his campaign is any indication how he will govern.

    He is a stubborn as GWB, even more stubborn. He still wants to stay in Iraq for a 100 years. In addition he wants to pick up where Cheney left off and Bomb Iran.

    For his energy policy he has shown he would rather listen to the Oil Executives, just like Cheney.

    Just like Bush he will use meaningless slogans like “surge” or “I can win wars” to keep from providing the American people with meaningful information.

    He has hired the campaign managers from the Bush/Rove era. We can expect them to run the White House just like Rove did: highly political.

    Etc….

  • Franklin

    says:

    While I’m getting slightly more negative on Obama’s chances, simply because negative campaigning works on the many stupid people around me, I’m at least as happy as always that Obama *could* be the next President. As shown above, he usually talks like an adult, as opposed to McCain who is still stuck in adolescence in many ways (“hey Sunnis and Shias, cut this shit out,” “I’ll be Hamas’ worst enemy,” “I know how to win wars,” “bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran.”).

  • petorado

    says:

    “They are very good at negative campaigns. They are not so good at governing.”

    Bingo! This is Obama’s ticket. He can ride it to the White House. Whenever a negative ad comes out, Obama should say those two sentences. Yes, Rove’s boys may be able to make him look bad, but Republicans just aren’t good at governing. Just look back at the last eight years.

    Publicly concede that Republicans are playing dirty, that their strategy is is not for McCain to win on his “merits”, but to create enough doubt that the vacillating public won’t vote for Obama. But then come back and hammer the Repubs by saying that they just can’t run a government — and everybody knows this. Republicans may run good campaigns, but they suck at everything that follows.

  • cb

    says:

    I am sad to say also that there are too many stupid people in this country for negative campaigning not to work. I am an avid Obama supporter, but I do not think he will win because this election is not about issues, which is never is, but it has become more complicated by race. People question why Obama is not as far ahead due to negativity for the republican party, well the answer is simiple to me, that some people would rather have a bad and corrupt government rather than have a black man as president. It does not matter if he is accomplished, well-educated, intelligent caring politician who is respected throughout the world.

  • Glen

    says:

    Obama is being very charitable about McCain’s actions.

    McCain is demonstrating in the worst possible ways that he will to ANYTHING to win.

    I only expect this to get much more Rove before November.