Led by "czar of Bush war room," McCain attack campaign "reminiscent" of attacks that defined Kerry

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT, pg.1: McCain Tries to Define Obama as Out of Touch
By JIM RUTENBERG
Published: July 31, 2008

WASHINGTON — After spending much of the summer searching for an effective line of attack against Senator Barack Obama, Senator John McCain is beginning a newly aggressive campaign to define Mr. Obama as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency.

On Wednesday alone, the McCain campaign released a new advertisement suggesting — and not in a good way — that Mr. Obama was a celebrity along the lines of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. Republicans tried to portray Mr. Obama as a candidate who believed the race was all about him, relying on what Democrats said was a completely inaccurate quotation. The Republican National Committee began an anti-Obama Web site called “Audacity Watch,” a play on the title of Mr. Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope.” And, in a concerted volley of television interviews, news releases and e-mail, campaign representatives attacked him on a wide range of issues, including tax policies and energy proposals.

The moves are the McCain campaign’s most full-throttled effort to define Mr. Obama negatively, on its own terms, by creating a narrative intended to turn the public off to an opponent....

Mr. McCain’s campaign is now under the leadership of members of President Bush’s re-election campaign, including Steve Schmidt, the czar of the Bush war room that relentlessly painted his opponent, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, as effete, elite, and equivocal through a daily blitz of sound bites and Web videos that were carefully coordinated with Mr. Bush’s television advertisements.

The run of attacks against Mr. Obama over the last couple of weeks have been strikingly reminiscent of that drive, including the Bush team’s tactics of seeking to make campaigns referendums on its opponents — not a choice between two candidates — and attacking the opponent’s perceived strengths head-on. Central to the latest McCain drive is an attempt to use against Mr. Obama the huge crowds and excitement he has drawn, including on his foreign trip last week, by promoting a view of him as more interested in attention and adulation than in solving the problems facing American families....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/us/politics/31campaign.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[Bluerthanblue]

1. strange how Rove joined Mccain in early July- and the 'tone' has

clearly changed.

What kind of a person would enlist the 'aid' of someone responsible for the 'horrible smear' campaign about Bridget being an illegitimate love child of McCain's?

This reveals the kind of 'man' he really is. Desperate- unprincipled- and morally bankrupt. (to name a few)

and most profoundly- a loser.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. You're right about the change of tone. The NYT, in fact, wrote an editorial...

about McCain embracing Rove's "tone" and his people. And I hadn't thought of the connection to what was done to his family in South Carolina. Of course -- unbelievably, he's embraced that, too.