Politicking

[neppyman]

So the McCain campaign has gone full-on offensive with their tactic of attacking Obama's character. The primary vector so far seems to have been Obama's associations with William Ayers, one of the founders of the Weather Underground. Admittedly, back in the 1960's, they were Very Bad People(tm). They set off bombs and were what just about

Comments

[stryck]

Stanley Kurtz did his own research into the subject.

[neppyman]

Good article; thanks for the link.

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call the policies "radical", although they certainly are left-leaning. But, considering that it's Chicago, it's not terribly surprising.

What really strikes me is that there are plenty of avenues to legitimately criticize Obama on - you could easily say that he has pushed left-leaning policies on schools, and cite these sorts of things as evidence. That would force Obama to go on the defensive, and to either refute his politics of that age, or to defend them anew.

Instead, the McCain campaign is going over-the-top and focusing on his association with Ayers. This is the kind of attack that Obama can largely ignore, because anyone looking will see that he can't possibly be any kind of threat now. Let's face it; if he were, he wouldn't be a professor at a major university.

I have the feeling that the methods of attack that the McCain campaign are choosing are too extreme, and will backfire.

[stryck]

There are professors at major universities that give money to the PLO, pretend to be things they aren't, and plagiarize publications. And they never get dismissed, because they have tenure.

The problem is that I don't see Obama himself as having any core beliefs he really stands for. Instead, he seems to adopt to whatever people around him want. A typical trait for a politician, but a dangerous one in an executive. If he'd surrounded himself with different people, I might have shrugged it away, but his youth and early adulthood are full of people who preach (literally in at least one case) extreme rhetoric and actively try to teach others to be like them.

I find the association to be troubling, because Ayers was a terrorist, and in 2001, said that he had no regrets. That he didn't do enough. He wouldn't even rule out the possibility of never doing it again. And that's why Obama's team makes this debate center on the question of "palling around". Even the most partisan fact-checker has a hard time coming up with reasons to

[neppyman]

I certainly agree with you that Obama has associated with some extreme people in the past, and that they have made significant strides in his behalf.

I'm not sure I agree with your view of him as not having any core beliefs, but I'll accept that as a criticism of him, instead of those he's associated with.

My question is, why not use that as ammunition? Bill Clinton took a lot of heat for his flip-flopping (Doonsbury, to this day, only portrays him as a hot, buttered waffle). If that's really such an issue, why is the McCain campaign talking non-stop about things and people from the past? Why not focus on the current things?

Agree with Obama or not, I think you have to admit that he's weathering this attack very well. He is not getting angry or defensive, and he's not lashing out, either. I certainly respect that from him and his campaign.