McCain accuses Obama of playing the race card
WASHINGTON - John McCain accused Barack Obama of playing politics with race yesterday, raising the explosive issue after the first black candidate with a serious chance of winning the White House claimed Republicans will try to scare voters by saying he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
Until now, the subject of race has been almost taboo in the campaign, at least in public, with both sides fearing its destructive force.
"I'm disappointed that Senator Obama would say the things he's saying," McCain told reporters in Racine, Wis. The Arizona senator 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." The aide was suggesting McCain had been wrongfully accused.
In turn, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said, "We weren't suggesting in any way he's using race as an issue," but that McCain "is using the same, old low-road politics that voters are very unhappy about to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign." A day earlier and in response to a hard-hitting McCain commercial, Obama argued that President George W. Bush and McCain have little to offer voters so Republicans will 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." He didn't explain the comment.
Obama long has talked about his physical appearance in speeches, but McCain advisers argue he crossed a significant line by accusing the GOP of scare tactics and alluding to his own race in the same breath.
The back-and-forth was the latest spike in a contest that's grown increasingly negative despite pledges by both Obama and McCain to run above-board campaigns.
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 GOP operative Karl Rove, who orchestrated Bush's back-to-back victories in part by tearing down Democratic opponents.
Now, several of Rove's former rank-and-file are in elevated roles in McCain's campaign, and it shows.
Opening a new front Wednesday, the GOP campaign rolled out a hard-hitting commercial that uses pictures of 20-something stars Britney Spears and Paris Hilton to suggest that Obama is little more than a media darling who is unqualified to be president.
Obama's campaign countered with its own ad that called McCain's charges "baloney" and "baseless." In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, yesterday, Obama steered clear of race as he chided McCain, 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? Is that worthy of the American people?'"
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