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Swift-boating in debate is a risky maneuver

BY JULES WITCOVER | Jules Witcover, a columnist for Tribune Media Services, is the author most recently of "Very Strange Bedfellows," about the Nixon-Agnew relationship. E.J. Dionne is off.

October 7, 2008

Strategists for Sen. John McCain have passed the word that he is poised to wage an even stronger attack against Sen. Barack Obama tonight in their second televised debate. If he becomes more personal, McCain will be taking another high-stakes gamble to turn his election chances around.

McCain's high-wire act has had mixed results so far. His selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate effectively, if only temporarily, shook up the campaign. But his surprise suspension of campaigning late last month and rush to Washington to inject himself, unsuccessfully, in the congressional fight over the financial crisis left him out on a limb.

If McCain comes out tonight slashing against Obama's character and personal associations, he will be risking a backlash. Voters have made it abundantly clear they are fed up with the politics of personal destruction, especially at a time of deep public concern over the state of the economy.

Nevertheless, the 2004 presidential campaign provided ample evidence of the effectiveness of character assassination. The assault four years ago against Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry over his decorated Vietnam War service as a swift-boat skipper was a key element in his loss.

So notorious was the attack that the term "swift-boating" has earned a place in the standard lexicon of political warfare. Kerry's tardy and failed response to the smear was widely regarded as a major factor in his narrow defeat by President George W. Bush four years ago.

When the swift-boating of Kerry started, it seemed preposterous that a Navy officer who had fought in Vietnam could be taken down by the campaign of an opponent who had avoided combat there under questionable circumstances. But in the context of 2004, when the war in Iraq still had public support, Kerry's opposition to it (also tardy) made him vulnerable to questions about his patriotism.

In 2008, the ammunition available to the McCain campaign against Obama is more personal, but it also consists of elements challenging his patriotism. His associations with his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, whose anti-American tirades are on the record, and with a Chicago neighbor who engaged in acts of domestic terrorism more than 40 years ago, already have been aired by the McCain camp.

A McCain adviser, Greg Strimple, was quoted in The Washington Post over the weekend as saying the campaign was "looking forward to turning the page" on the financial crisis that has contributed to McCain's political woes, "and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans."

The next day, Palin characterized Obama as "someone who sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists." She quoted from a New York Times article citing William Ayers, now an Obama neighbor in Chicago, as part of the Weatherman group that sought to "target the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol" during the Vietnam War.

Obama has denounced Ayers' actions of the time and has minimized his association with him since the days they both served on an education board in Chicago and Ayers hosted an Obama event during his 1995 race for the Illinois State Senate.

Palin also took a swipe at Obama running mate Sen. Joe Biden. In defending Obama's call on wealthy Americans to pay higher taxes, Biden earlier had said it would be "patriotic" for them to do so in this time of economic distress. "These are the same guys," Palin said of Biden and Obama, "who think patriotism is paying higher taxes."

Tonight's presidential debate at Belmont University in Nashville will employ the informal town-meeting format that McCain has used to good advantage before. But with questions coming from the audience, it may be more awkward for him to go into attack mode.

As for Obama, his best debate strategy would be to resist responding in kind, such as by resurrecting McCain's involvement in the Charles Keating savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s. His campaign has brought that up again recently, even though McCain merely got his wrist slapped at the time. Digging up that old rap tonight would only dilute any voter backlash against McCain's personal charges.