Friday Morning: Character Crossfire; The Crowd Wants More; And Palin's Rise To Prominence

Happy Friday.

With less than three weeks to go, the campaign is really starting to sizzle. Barack Obama spent yesterday hammering McCain's mortgage bailout proposal in speeches and an ad. He used what the LA Times describes as his "sharpest language yet" -- calling McCain's plan (and its shifting details) an example of "erratic and unpredictable leadership." Those keywords have been stalwarts of Obama campaign rhetoric recently, in an effort to subtly impugn McCain's temperament and age.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign spent the day focusing heavily on Obama's association with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, couching the men's relationship (they served together on two boards in Chicago) as evidence of Obama's bad judgment. Sarah Palin has been discussing Ayers since her references this weekend to Obama "palling around with terrorists." Yesterday McCain picked up the Ayers gauntlet, telling a crowd in Waukesha that Obama's downplaying his relationship with Ayers raises the question of "whether Senator Obama is telling the truth to the American people or not." And the campaign released a web video on Obama's relationship with Ayers, coincident with an RNC ad that ties Obama to unsavory Chicagoans including Ayers.

This morning the McCain camp emailed reporters another ad invoking Ayers. The new spot says Obama initially "worked with terrorist Bill Ayers" out of "blind ambition" and then "lied" about it and goes on to accuse him of "bad judgment". The ad then pivots to blame "congressional liberals" for the subprime crisis, and links that "bad judgment" to Obama's with Ayers. (Ayers' bombing activities occurred more than 20 years before the men met, and before Ayers received a PhD and became a professor. He later wrote a memoir about his time with the Weather Underground, and told the NYT in an ill-timed interview published September 11, 2001 that he thought they hadn't done enough to protest the Vietnam war.)

But the crowds at McCain's events are demanding a more explicit assault on Obama's character and judgment, and are making their angry voices heard. The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, and The Wall Street Journal (among others) all write this morning about increasing vitriol among McCain rally-goers.

Here's a crowd sample from the WSJ article:

Someone yelled "Off with his head" at a rally Wednesday for Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin in Pennsylvania. Later that day in Ohio, a man stood outside a rally holding a sign that said "Obama, Osama." At a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, someone in the crowd wore a T-shirt depicting Sen. Obama wearing a devil mask.

That article also says some of McCain's own strategists have called for tougher attacks on Obama, including using the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, which McCain has resisted. Marc Ambinder wonders this morning if McCain's heart is really in this guilt-by-association thing at all?

Despite the anti-Obama energy from McCain's rally-going base, some observers note that McCain's harsher tone could turn off the moderate and swing voters he needs to win. As former McCain strategist John Weaver (who was ousted in the 2007 shakeup that got McCain's then-failing campaign back on track for the nomination) told Politico:

People need to understand, for moral reasons and the protection of our civil society, the differences with Senator Obama are ideological, based on clear differences on policy and a lack of experience compared to Senator McCain...And from a purely practical political vantage point, please find me a swing voter, an undecided independent, or a torn female voter that finds an angry mob mentality attractive.

Further, the Ayers strategy may strike voters as extraneous noise, or -- even worse -- an attempt to distract them from the economic crisis. McCain proposed a huge mortgage bailout plan Tuesday night, but on the stump he's talking about Ayers. Chris "The Fix" Cillizza writes that voters may not want to hear it:

Until voters believe McCain understands their struggles and worries on the economy, it's likely they will dismiss as frivolous attacks on Obama's past relationships.

And Obama is capitalizing on the risks of McCain's gambit. During a speech on the economy in Ohio this morning, Obama dismissed McCain's attacks as a political distraction from more important issues:

I know my opponent is worried about his campaign. But that's not what I'm concerned about. I'm thinking about the Americans losing their jobs, and their homes, and their life savings. We can't afford four more years of the economic theory that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. We can't afford four more years of less regulation so that no one in Washington is watching anyone on Wall Street. We've seen where that's led us and we're not going back.

And finally, the Washington Post chronicles Sarah Palin's rise to prominence. Apparently Palin's national star really started to rise when the Alaska Department of National Resources hired a PR firm to promote her as a "crusader against Big Oil" -- including setting up an interview blitz with local media. These days, of course, Palin doesn't need any help getting reporters' attention...though they might like a hand getting her to notice them.

-- Evie Stone

11:00 AM ET | 10-10-2008 | permalink

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