The Trail

Thursday, July 31, 2008

STEPPING IT UP A NOTCH

Obama Says GOP Wants to Scare Voters

ROLLA, Mo. -- A comic shtick about the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee having a funny name and a face different from other presidential candidates has been part of Barack Obama's stump speech for weeks. But after Obama played the line bigger than usual Wednesday, Republicans cried foul.

"Nobody thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face. So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama told a crowd in Springfield. "You know, 'He's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name.' You know, 'He doesn't look like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills.' "

"Those folks know they don't have any good answers. They know they had their turn over the last eight years and made a mess of things," he said here. "They know they can only win by making you scared of me."

Obama did not directly mention race or his full name -- Barack Hussein Obama.

But when John McCain's campaign responded, it was to say that Obama had "baselessly forecasted that John McCain would make claims about Obama's physical appearance and middle name."

"Like most celebrities, he reacts to fair criticism with a mix of fussiness and hysteria," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

-- Jonathan Weisman

EAGER FOR A FIGHT

Tax Showdown at High Noon?

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- File this one under the category "Who knew?"

Speaking at a packed town hall meeting, Barack Obama said he was ready to take on John McCain thanks in part to his ancestry. It seems, he said, that he is a distant cousin of legendary gunman Wild Bill Hickok.

"I'm serious," he said to incredulous but good-natured laughter. "That's part of the family legend. I don't know if it's true. But I'm ready to duel John McCain on taxes."

The Hickok legend started in Springfield, where the gunfighter met a former Confederate soldier named Davis Tutt in 1865. In debt to Tutt and perhaps sore over a mutual girlfriend, James Butler Hickok squared off with Tutt in the town square, gunning him down in a "quick draw."

That's not what Obama has in mind for McCain, but he said that he is ready for Republican attacks on him as a tax hiker. Both men have released detailed tax plans, and both plans ultimately cut taxes overall, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, jointly run by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute.

-- Jonathan Weisman

EVER THE BELTWAY OUTSIDER

McCain Distances Himself From Stevens

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- John McCain has yet to comment publicly on Tuesday's indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on federal corruption charges, but spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace used the indictment Wednesday to buttress the presumptive GOP nominee's frequent comment that "Washington is corrupt."

Stevens, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee before his indictment, had frequently fought with McCain over channeling federal dollars to parochial projects such as Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere."

"Like every American, Senator Stevens is entitled to a presumption of innocence," Wallace told reporters in a prepared statement aboard the McCain campaign plane. "Senator McCain and Senator Stevens have clashed famously over the appropriations process, which Senator McCain views as broken and subject to the type of corruption that has caused voters to lose faith with Washington."

-- Juliet Eilperin