McCain's New Line Of Attack

We've heard for months that Barack Obama was an empty-handed, idealistic neophyte. Now, John McCain's election strategists in Arlington want to transform him into a scheming insider-urban-machine politician. Beginning with a television "ad" that questions Obama's relationship to machine fixtures and continuing with surrogate attacks and research hits, the goal is to undermine Obama's reformer credentials during the economic crisis and to situate his ambition, putting him alongside corrupt Chicago politicians. The McCain campaign claims the ad will run nationally, but they've scheduled a conference call with Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis to pound home the point.

The ad itself is a breezy, guilt-by-association tour.  One line notices simply that Rod Blagojevich happens to be the governor of Illinois. "His governor, Rod Blagojevich. A legacy of federal and state investigations." 

Obama continues to hit McCain for allegedly wanting to subject the health care system to the same deregulation he blames for the collapse of the banking system, unveiling a new ad this morning showing McCain and Bush together, McCain and Bush together, McCain and Bush together.