Presidential Campaigns Get Personal, Unpresidential

For two guys who claim they want to change the tone of American politics, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain sure sound like old politics. With four weeks to go before polling day, the attacks and counter-attacks are less about policy and more about personality. The old-hat, Rovian heat is generating less light about the competing visions for the country’s future than ever before in this campaign.

In bringing up Senator Obama’s relationships with Reverend Wright (a preacher who brought the Senator to Jesus) and Bill Ayers (co-founder of the Weathermen terrorist organization), the McCain campaign has blundered. The stories were combed over by the Clintonistas and nothing untoward came of them. Moreover, the Ayers connection is laughable, as Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, “Senator Obama strongly condemns the violent actions of the Weathermen group, as he does all acts of violence. But he was an eight-year-old child when Ayers and the Weathermen were active, and any attempt to connect Obama with events of almost forty years ago is ridiculous.”

Meanwhile, the name of Charles Keating has finally fallen from the lips of the Obamaniacs. John McCain is now linked to the Savings & Loan meltdown just as another financial crisis hits Wall Street. There are two difficulties with the Keating Five attack. First, it’s old news and voters are much more concerned about the current mess. Second, the Senate investigation cleared Mr. McCain of impropriety while saying he exercised poor judgment. That’s hardly a home run for the Democrats.

This guilt-by-association is gossipy nonsense in a political campaign, and it may take lids off cans of worms. For example, Governor Palin’s husband Todd appears to have supported an Alaskan independence movement. And what about Michelle Obama serving as a board member of TreeHouse Foods, a supplier of Wal-Mart? Seriously, these are tangential, at best, to the election that lies ahead.

Unfortunately, the campaign has reached the point where the writing is on the wall. If it continues to have the economy as its focus, Mr. Obama wins. The McCain camp has to change the nature of the discussion, and none of the other issues appears to favor the GOP. Thus, the personal attacks are the only way forward. Regrettably, negative personal attacks work in politics, and the Obama forces know that they have to throw the mud right back. It’s going to be an unpleasant four weeks.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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