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McCain ad tries to sow Democratic discord
(Associated Press WorldStream Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) DENVER_On the eve of the Democratic National Convention, Republican John McCain was trying Sunday to horn in on the party, firing off a new television ad implying that Barack Obama snubbed Hillary Rodham Clinton by picking Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate.
McCain's new commercial was designed to stir up lingering hard feelings between the Obama camp and those Clinton supporters who have refused to accept the Illinois senator's victory over the former first lady after their extended and sometimes bitter battle for the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
The McCain ad shows Clinton saying critical things about Obama during the primary contest, including: "Sen. Obama's campaign has become increasingly negative."
An announcer says, "She won millions of votes but isn't on the ticket. Why? For speaking the truth."
Campaigning in the battleground state of Wisconsin, Obama said he was "absolutely convinced" Biden was right for the job.
"He's got the passion to lift up middle-class Americans, he hasn't forgotten his working-class roots, he has the expertise that will make him a great counselor on international crises that might come up," Obama told reporters before boarding his plane in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Earlier, speaking at a barbecue at a lakeside gun and rod park in the western Wisconsin city, Obama said both he and Biden had humble roots and predicted the veteran lawmaker from Delaware would be "one of the greatest vice presidents in the history of the United States."
Responding to the ad, Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said the New York senator's "support of Barack Obama is clear. She has said repeatedly that Barack Obama and she share a commitment to changing the direction of the country, getting us out of Iraq, and expanding access to health care. John McCain doesn't. It's interesting how those remarks didn't make it into his ad."
Also Sunday, the party's credentials committee voted to restore full voting rights to delegates from Michigan and Florida at the national convention this week, despite their holding early primaries against party rules that were won by Clinton .
With his nomination assured, Obama sought a show of unity and a gesture to Clinton supporters to shore up support in those two important states. The states had initially been stripped of all their delegates for holding primaries before Feb. 5. The party's rules committee restored the delegates in May, but gave them only half votes.
In choosing Biden and his matchless foreign policy expertise accumulated during a 35-year Senate career, Obama got what he may need most _ a vice presidential candidate with encyclopedic global know-how and a political brawler ready to take on McCain's frontal assault on his opponent's newness on the national stage.
Through the month of August _ in the days leading up to the national party conventions _ McCain whittled away at Obama's slight lead in the polls with relentless attacks designed to paint the first-term Illinois senator as an inexperienced celebrity-seeking elitist not ready for the White House.
While the 47-year-old Obama fought back blow-for-blow and even adopted some negative tactics himself, his campaign has not shown the kind of visceral sharpness he is facing from McCain's operation.
It will be hard to imagine Biden, who is 65, being as low-key as was Obama after McCain charged his opponent this summer with being ready to lose the Iraq war for the sake of winning the presidential election. Obama has sought, as he can, to moderate his responses _ some say to avoid looking like an angry black man in an election contest that could put the first African-American in the U.S. presidency.
Biden, a working-class Irish Catholic with more than three decades in the legislative cauldron of the U.S. Senate, shows none of Obama's reticence to go for the jugular.
Fresh from introducing Biden, Obama set his sights on Wisconsin and other battleground states of Iowa, Missouri and Montana before he accepts the nomination on Thursday at a football stadium in Denver. The Democratic National Convention begins on Monday with speakers including Obama's wife, Michelle, and a video tribute to liberal icon Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling a malignant brain tumor.
Biden returned to Delaware after the ticket's first joint appearance Saturday in Springfield, Illinois, where Obama had begun his campaign in February 2007. Biden attended Sunday Mass at a church near his home in Greenville, Delaware. He left the service without commenting to reporters.
Obama attended services at First Lutheran Church before a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, a city of 65,000 about 85 miles (135 kilometers) east of St. Paul, Minnesota, site of the Republican convention which begins Sept. 1.
Even though most polls predict Democrats making notable gains this year in Congress _ given the unpopularity of President George W. Bush and Republican scandals _ Obama has been unable, so far, to open a significant lead as the Democratic National Convention opens.
While he displayed phenomenal political skills, rocketing from the Illinois state legislature to his party's presidential nomination in four years, Democratic insiders believe that many Americans still feel they do not really know him.
The convention marks the beginning of the fall campaign and offers a chance to present Obama to voters as someone they can envision as president, looking out for their everyday concerns. A goal of the convention is to describe his American story and his family roots.
Polls show voters are most concerned about the country's wobbly economy _ home mortgage foreclosures, high fuel and food costs and growing unemployment _ but McCain's appeal appears to be growing out of the lingering shock to Americans' sense of security from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Copyright ? 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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