Who is the Real McCain?
29 April 2008 |permalink | email article
John McCain is showing an increasing tendency to radically shift positions, whether on Iraq or domestic policy issues.
The newest example is his flip-flop rhetoric on the toxic Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy and its potentially devastating impact on Barack Obama’s campaign.
Last Wednesday McCain sent a sharply word email to the North Carolina Republican chairwoman asking the state party not to run an attack ad featuring Wright and calling Obama “extreme.”
(The North Carolina Democratic Party that day called the GOP ad “racist gutter politics.’ Significantly, Hillary Clinton remained silent for several days.)
McCain said, “From the beginning of this election, I have been committed to running a respectful campaign based on an honest debate about the great issues confronting America today…This ad does not live up to the very high standards we should hold ourselves to in this campaign.”
On Friday McCain responded on the “Today” show: “They’re not listening to me because they’re out of touch with reality and the Republican Party. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Regan and this kind of campaign is unacceptable.”
Asked if the North Carolina party decision to run the ad raised questions about his leadership, McCain said, “I don’t know exactly how to respond.”
It was an embarrassing lesson for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee but a big victory for conservatives who want to keep the heat on Obama and Wright on matters related to patriotism and other issues.
But Sunday, after Obama’s remark on “Fox News Sunday” – and before Wright’s NAACP speech in Detroit and incendiary comments at the National Press Club yesterday – that his former pastor was “a legitimate issue” a different McCain pounced, citing comments that seemed to compare the U.S. with Al Qaeda.
When it was noted that he had previously said Wright was not fair game, McCain again alluded to Obama’s original statement.
The Obama camp’s reaction was acid: “By sinking to the level that he specifically said he’d avoid, John McCain has broken his promise to the American people and rendered hollow his promise of a respectful campaign.”
“On Wright, McCain appears to be torn,“ Politico reported. But what seems clear is that on the issue of race McCain has succumbed to the extremist conservative drumbeat.
RealClearPolitics Average (4/27)
North Carolina: Obama leads by 12.3%
Indiana: Obama and Clinton each have 45.5%.
634
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