McCain: Obama plays race card
The Democrat said foes aimed to scare voters by saying he didn't look like other presidents.
WASHINGTON - Republican John McCain yesterday accused Democrat Barack Obama of playing politics with race after Obama - the first black candidate with a good chance of winning the White House - claimed that Republicans would try to scare voters by saying he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
Until now, the issue of race has been almost taboo in the campaign, at least in public, with both sides fearing its destructive force.
"I'm disappointed that Sen. Obama would say the things he's saying," McCain told reporters in Racine, Wis.
McCain said he agreed with campaign manager Rick Davis' statement earlier that "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong."
In turn, Obama's campaign said his comment was not about race.
"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," spokesman Bill Burton said.
A day earlier and in response to a hard-hitting McCain commercial, Obama argued that President Bush and McCain had little to offer voters so Republicans would resort to a strategy of fear to keep the White House.
"What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
The daily rhetoric has turned red-hot as both men maneuver in a race that polls show is highly competitive three months before the election.
At 46, Obama is serving his first Senate term and working to overcome concerns of some voters that he is not ready to be president.
In recent days, McCain has been going after Obama with new fervor, painting him as not ready to lead and too liberal for the country.
It's an aggressive approach reminiscent of the strategy used by GOP operative Karl Rove, who orchestrated Bush's back-to-back victories. Several of Rove's former rank-and-file are in elevated roles in McCain's campaign.
Opening a new front Wednesday, the GOP campaign rolled out a hard-hitting commercial that uses pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to suggest that Obama is little more than a media darling unqualified to be president.
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, yesterday, Obama steered clear of race, saying: "So far, all we've been hearing about is Paris Hilton. I do have to ask my opponent: 'Is that the best you can do? Is that what this election is really all about?' "
2 Pa. Polls: Obama Leading
Two new Pennsylvania
polls show Democrat Barack Obama maintaining a lead over Republican John McCain.
A survey commissioned
by Strategic Vision,
an Atlanta-based public relations firm, shows Obama ahead of McCain, 49 percent to 40 percent. The poll of 1,200 likely voters was conducted last weekend and has a margin of error of
3 percentage points.
The other,
by the Quinnipiac Polling Institute of Connecticut, has Obama leading by seven points, 49 percent to 42 percent. The poll of 1,317 people was conducted July 23-29, and the margin of error was 2.7 points.
A previous version
of that poll, in mid-June, had Obama up by 12 points.
The new Quinnipiac
survey also suggests how the energy issue is playing
in the state.
By ratios of
about 2-1, voters agree with McCain that expanded offshore oil drilling and nuclear-power generation are needed to meet the nation's energy needs. They also support, by a narrow margin, Obama's emphasis on using energy more efficiently as opposed to expanding domestic oil and natural-gas supplies.
McCain is being hurt
by President Bush's low job-approval rate in the state (24 percent) and the fact that only 18 percent of voters say they are satisfied with the way things are going.
- Larry Eichel