McCain Forced To Defend Obama's Character

After a slew of attacks on Barack Obama's character made by Sarah Palin, McCain campaign surrogates and in attack ads running on TV and Radio, John McCain felt the need to defend Barack Obama at a campaign rally yesterday.

During the past two weeks the McCain campaign has not tried to hide the fact that its new strategy was to attack Obama and some of his alleged past associations. His running mate Sarah Palin, in particular, has sought to highlight Obama's ties to the '60s radical William Ayers, whom the campaign labels a terrorist, and paint the Democratic nominee as outside of the mainstream. During rally's this past week conducted by John McCain and Sarah Palin, angry supporters of the Republican ticket could be clearly heard invoking cries like "terrorist" and "traitor." The Secret Service confirmed Friday that it had investigated an episode in which someone in a Sarah Palin crowd in Clearwater, Florida shouted "kill him," in reference to Obama this past Monday. At a rally this week in New Mexico, McCain winced when his mention of Obama's name was greeted by the shout of "terrorist," but the candidate said nothing. With many recent polls suggesting that the McCain campaign strategy of sharp attacks on Obama's character have not yet had their desired effect and may be backfiring, yesterday John McCain moved to quell some of the rising tensions and anger among his supporters towards rival Barack Obama, At a town-hall meeting in Lakeville, Minnesota after one man said he was scared to raise his unborn child in a country that might be led by a President Obama, McCain disagreed stating about his Democratic foe: "I have to tell you, he is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States," His conciliatory words drew boos and groans from supporters who pressed McCain to get tougher on Obama prompting him to state: "If you want a fight, we will fight. But we will be respectful. I admire Senator Obama and his accomplishments. I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity; I just mean to say you have to be respectful." McCain found the need to grab the microphone from a woman who had begun to say she didn't like Obama because he is an Arab. McCain shook his head in disagreement, and said: "No, ma'am. No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, a citizen who I just happen to have serious differences with on fundamental questions." The fact that John McCain has come out to defend Obama is just another example of what Barack Obama has called erratic behavior by the Republican nominee. On one hand the McCain campaign and its surrogates have unleashed a flurry of attack advertising that questions his rival's ethics and past associations with the effect of riling up his supporters, On the other he is defending Barack Obama's honor to the same supporters whose emotions have been heightened by the ads and rhetoric.