McCain Tries to Moderate His Criticism of Obama

By putting into question the patriotism and “otherness” of the Democratic candidate, the Republican camp fears it will be accused of racism.

John McCain wonders how far he can go in his personal attacks against Barack Obama. Thursday his advisers weighed the issue during a conference call. Some are beginning to worry about the impact of their assaults against the personality of the Democratic candidate.

The strategy of putting in question Obama’s patriotism, origin, and socializing entourage was decided last Friday at a meeting of his headquarters campaign in Phoenix. Since then, McCain and his allies spend their time to threaten fear on the Illinois senator. “Who is he?” says the Arizona senator on stage, pointing his relations “with an old outdated terrorist” named Bill Ayers, a former violent activist now quasi-notable in Chicago. “He does not see America as you and I,”, adds his Vice President, Gov. Sarah Palin. “Imagine what you will feel like when you wake up on November 5th with Barack Hussein Obama elected as president of the United States,” said Bill Platt, president of the local Republican Party, Wednesday in Bethlehem, Penn.

The reaction of the conservative public exceeds the expectations of the Republican ticket. “Let them cut his head,” cried a man at a meeting of Bethlehem. The previous day, a McCain supporter worn a T-Shirt representing Obama under the mask of the evil. In Ohio, a sign indicated: “Obama = Osama”, in reference to bin Laden. In a documentary broadcast on Fox News, a right-wing activist, Andy Martin, describes the work of “community organizer” by Obama in his youth as “an extremist training to overthrow the government.”

“Only the war of cultures can make us win”

According to his adviser Mark Salter, John McCain is “very happy” of the tour of his campaign. Monday, he told the New York Times to make the election “a referendum on the personality of Obama.”

In the Los Angeles Times, Timothy Garton Ash, professor at Stanford, analyzes the Republican strategy: “Only the war of cultures can make us win,” Ash said. “On Iraq, we lose. On the economy, we lose. But caricaturing the ‘otherness’ of a candidate named Barack Obama, we have a chance to snatch victory.”

In the Washington Post, Dan Balz decoded the message: “There is something special about Obama.” The Democrats have not confused about the deep meaning of these attacks: “There are a thousand reasons to vote for Obama and a reason to vote against – race,” says Timothy Leston, elect of Pennsylvania. In polls, 83 percent of Americans said that skin color plays no role in their choice. But a study from Stanford University assesses the potential gap between the statements of the respondents and their votes to 6 percent of the vote, virtually the same as Obama’s lead in the polls. It is the “Bradley effect,” named after an African-American candidate for the post of governor of California in 1982, who lost narrowly while polls showed him winner. In Obama`s case, it is more complicated: 46 percent of Americans are unable to identify his religion and 13 percent think he is Muslim.

McCain is counting on these factors to go against the public. But he makes sure not to show off a lot. Thursday, the Republican candidate had maintained the “red line” drawn on the name of Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Obama whose diatribes “anti-Americans” had been controversy during the primary. Pressed by some people to include him in his attacks, like Sarah Palin has already done, he refuses in the name of “respect for the faith.”

“This is not because of race,” says one of his advisers. The concern, however, begins to break into the limits of its strategy: “I want John to have a positive speech on solving the problems of America,” said his friend Senator Lindsey Graham. Especially since the hype is slow to bear fruit: the Democrat remains competitive in states like Virginia and South Carolina, where segregation was still in force half a century ago, and the personal attacks have triggered a response from the same barrel. In criticizing the “erratic” reaction of John McCain to the economic crisis, Obama reminds the public of the main weakness of the 72-year-old: his age.