McCain-Palin Attempt to Shift Focus Away from Economy

While sources indicate that McCain is falling behind Obama in the polls, the McCain-Palin campaign is attempting to distract Americans from thinking about the struggling economy. Instead, they're attempting to question Obama's connections with Bill Ayers again.

As this CNN article explains,

With Obama rising in polls while the country struggles in the grip of a financial crisis, Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign decided to shift attention away from the troubled economy and onto issues of his opponent's character, judgment and personal associations, the Washington Post reported.

"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, requesting anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss strategy. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here."

The question of Obama's connections with Bill Ayers, whom CNN notes was engaged in Anti-American terrorist activity in the 1970's and now resides in Obama's neighborhood, was previously discussed in a New York Times article but the article concluded that "the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8."

Additionally, CNN notes that,

Several other publications, including the Washington Post, Time magazine, the Chicago Sun-Times, The New Yorker and The New Republic, have debunked the idea that Obama and Ayers had a close relationship.

Riot and bomb conspiracy charges against Ayers were dropped in 1974, and he is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Obama campaign spokesman Hari Sevugan called Palin's comments "offensive" and "not surprising given the McCain campaign's statement this morning that they would be launching Swift Boat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation's economic ills."

Personally, I note two things about McCain's decision to launch unfounded and untrue claims on Obama's personal character in an attempt to shift focus from the economy:

1) This action seems to contrast starkly with his declared motives for suspending his campaign earlier to work out a solution for the economic crisis and attempt to pass the $700 billion bailout. Clearly, he is more interested now in wasting time in perpetrating misleading information about Obama than in furthering bipartisan efforts to address our economic issues.

2) Palin talks a lot about being an "outsider" from Washington and the advantage that gives her in addressing the issues that really matter to American voters. She also talks a lot about doing what is right and ethical. Her willingness to perpetrate lies about Obama says that she is either not as concerned with doing what is right as she says she is, or she is all too willing to believe whatever her advisers tell her without doing a little bit of work on her part to figure out whether or not the advice is good and credible. Neither of these bodes well for her ability to bring about significant reform as she and McCain have promised.