Wednesday, October 08, 2008

On the Other Hand   [Rich Lowry]

I was just talking to a friend who—counter to what I wrote about Ayers here—is adamant that McCain needs to go after Obama directly on Ayers and perhaps even Wright (if he can wiggle his way out of having put him out of bounds). He thinks McCain needs to unleash a mad-as-hell stemwinder on Obama as an aloof dilettante who feels no passion for the problems of the country and no passion about the heinous words and deeds of associates like Wright and Ayers. Just blast away. No indirection, no hinting around, no out-sourcing the tough rhetoric to Palin. The press, which wants McCain to fade graciously away, will howl, but it's the only chance to drag Obama down to earth again, the way Hillary did at the end of the primaries. He thinks it has to be a three-pronged case (some of which has already shown up in McCain's presentations): 1) Obama has never challenged his own party's leadership; 2) Obama's associations shed a poor light on his judgment; 3) We need divided government to check congressional liberals. He'd like to see McCain unleash this kind of offensive now, building it up and then following through on it in next week's debate. Could it backfire? Sure. Could it alienate swing voters? Yes. But time's running out. He believes if McCain can score a good, clean, direct hit, Obama's lead would vanish. Because there are still doubts about him, and even at the end of the Democratic primaries half of Democrats were still luke-warm about him. Fwiw...

10/08 04:53 PMShare