Michael O. Allen

Now this is more like it!

Obama spokesperson Bill Burton today released the following statement:

“We will take no lectures from John McCain who is cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern Presidential campaign history. His discredited ads with disgusting lies are running all over the country today. He runs a campaign not worthy of the office he is seeking,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election. Politico’s Johnathan Martin explains why. Money quote:

McCain seems to have made a choice that many politicians succumb to but that he had always promised to avoid — he appears ready to do whatever it takes to win, even it if soils his reputation.

“We recognize it’s not going to be 2000 again,” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said, alluding to the media’s swooning coverage of McCain’s ill-fated crusade against then-Gov. George W. Bush and the GOP establishment. “But he lost then. We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”

Rogers, who hung tough with McCain through the dark days of the primary and has lived through every high and low of this turbulent and unpredictable race, argues that they tried to run a high-ground campaign and sought to keep the candidate in front of the media in the fashion he enjoys. His point: No one paid any attention.

“We ran a different kind of campaign and nobody cared about us. They didn’t cover John McCain. So now you’ve got to be forward-leaning in everything,” he said.

I don’t fault McCain for being negative — even nasty — if he thinks it’s what he needs to do to win. But there’s an ethical way to go negative and an unethical way to go negative. It’s not clear yet which works better, but it’s clear which one McCain has chosen.

Cross-posted from Facebook.

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2 responses to “Now this is more like it!”

  1. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    , which formed the basis for a bapartisin stimulus package that passed the Congress. Is that true?Democrats on Capitol Hill who support Obama say no.Wanting Obama to win, however, none will say so on the record.But media accounts from the time make it clear that even though Obama, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., all offered legislation to provide stimulus to the economy, congressional leaders looped them and their legislation out of negotiations.Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson worked with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kent. Pelosi and Reid seemed to be ignoring the detailed policy solutions being put out by her party’s White House hopefuls, wrote the Washington Post on January 23. Among Reid’s toughest tasks will be keeping Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill. who are on the campaign trail touting proposals laden with ideas Republicans detest sidelined in the talks while Democrats seek broader agreement with the GOP, wrote the Associated Press the same day.The bill passed 81-16 on February 7, 2008.The Obama campaign argues that in January 2008, Obama was the only candidate to propose a fiscal stimulus plan centered on tax rebate checks for the broad majority of Americans. The bapartisin bill that passed less than a month later was centered on rebate checks to the broad middle class along the lines of what Obama proposed. That is true.Obama proposed a tax rebate aimed at middle class families. Clinton’s approach, conversely, focused on specific programs targeted at individuak problems, such as home-heating and mortgage subsidies.But though the bill that eventually passed more closely resembled Obama’s than either Clinton’s or McCain’s, those involved in the drafting of the legislation say it was more a matter of agreeing on a good idea and was not a matter of, as Obama claimed, his proposal having formed the basis for a bapartisin stimulus package that passed the Congress. In Vienna, Ohio, this afternoon, McCain said that Obama today claimed that the Congressional stimulus package was his idea. That’s news to those of us in Congress who supported it. Senator Obama didn’t even show up to vote. That’s true. (McCain was there, and he voted for it.)Moreover, Obama today was guilty of inflating his role in the creation of that bill. jpt

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  2. Mahdieh Avatar
    Mahdieh

    Since when do you need to be “qualified” to pick a caddinate ?Since when does a caddinate need to be “qualified” to be picked ?This kind of talk is gold for authoritarians.The Democracy is not about solving problems, listening to/electing “clever” people.For better or worse, the People should decide. Should, cause it doesn’t anymore.And their stupidity or ignorance has nothing to do with their inalienable right to decide.

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