Democrat Denounces 'Slash-and-Burn Politics'
By Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 5, 2008
YORK, Pa., Sept. 4 -- For the first two days of the Republican convention, Sen. Barack Obama resisted pushing back against the attacks emanating from St. Paul, Minn. But on Thursday, the fourth and final day, his patience gave out, as he dismissed the barrage of criticism from the convention floor as "the same old vitriol and slash-and-burn politics."
"You wouldn't know that this is such a critical election by watching the convention last night," the Democratic presidential nominee told a group of factory workers assembled under a blazing sun. "You're hearing a lot about John McCain, and he's got a compelling biography as a prisoner of war. You're hearing an awful lot about me, most of which is not true. What you're not hearing is a lot about you."
GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's stinging address on Wednesday night appeared to have put Obama in a combative mood. The feistiness demonstrated by McCain's running mate briefly threw his campaign off its stride; of its many unanswered questions about Palin, one concerned her toughness as a candidate. Before Thursday, Obama and his allies had said little publicly about the first-term Alaska governor since McCain announced her as his running mate last Friday, leaving reporters to dig into her small-town background, and political pundits and liberal blogs to raise questions about her qualifications.
But Palin's mocking critique of Obama, and the thunderous cheers it drew from Republican delegates, led the Democrat's camp to sharpen its response.
"We're into the final day of the convention, and not one serious word about the state of the economy, not one serious word about where they would lead," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief political strategist. "We've heard again and again that John McCain was a prisoner of war, for which we all honor him and respect him. But heck, we knew that before the convention."
The Obama campaign's toughest words about Palin on Thursday came in response to a fundraising letter in which the Alaska governor alleged that Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., are responsible for peddling "flat-out lies" about her family. No evidence has surfaced that connects the Democratic candidates or their staffs to rumors about Palin's private life, including the pregnancy of her unwed teenage daughter. Liberal blogs were widely speculating about the subject before the McCain campaign announced the news on Monday.
Obama and Biden have insisted that their opponents' families are off-limits, and Obama said he would fire anyone in his campaign who violated that edict. "The only 'flat-out lie' is this ridiculous claim," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in response to the Palin fundraising appeal.
The Democratic campaign also announced its best day of fundraising, bringing in $10 million in the 24 hours after Palin spoke in St. Paul. "I hope she gives a speech every single day," Burton said.
Obama made an effort to compete for conservative television viewers Thursday night by appearing on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News. Host Bill O'Reilly pressed him on two issues that Republicans view as vulnerabilities: his opposition to the troop "surge" in Iraq and his willingness to talk even with U.S. adversaries.
"I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated," Obama told O'Reilly of President Bush's decision last year to increase troop levels, a move that McCain urged relentlessly. "It's succeeded beyond our wildest dreams."
But, he added, "the Iraqis still haven't taken responsibility. And we still don't have that kind of political reconciliation."
Asked to list U.S. enemies, Obama responded, "Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, a whole host of networks that are bent on attacking America who have a distorted ideology, who have perverted the faith of Islam and so we have to go after them."
He said he would "never take military action off the table" in the case of Iran. "It is unacceptable for Iran to possess a nuclear weapon; it would be a game changer," Obama said.
The Democratic National Committee also sought to minimize any appeal Palin may hold among female voters. On a DNC-organized conference call, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius conceded that Palin's "persona" is "very attractive and very enticing," but dismissed her as a candidate "from the radical fringe of the Republican Party" on reproductive and privacy issues.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), who strongly backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) in the Democratic primaries, asserted: "I don't think there were many inroads made in general with women, and none at all with Hillary Clinton supporters."
The effort to ensure that McCain will not make inroads with women got a boost from Clinton, who will make stops in central Florida on Monday on Obama's behalf. But the trip is not, according to aides in both camps, designed as a response to Palin. An Obama aide said the trip has been "in the works for weeks," and two Clinton advisers said she will continue to focus on issues, such as the economy, not Palin. If she does make remarks that touch on Palin, they will be designed to state a larger point about McCain, not to burrow down into a debate over sexism, an aide said.
Obama and Biden were not entirely on the same page on Palin on Thursday. Speaking to reporters in York, Obama waved off a question about whether media coverage of her has been sexist. "If they want to work the refs, they are free to do so," he said of GOP supporters who have made the allegation. "And I think the public can make their judgments about this." But, he added: "I assume she wants to be treated the same way that guys want to be treated, which means that their records are under scrutiny. I've been through this for 19 months. She's been through it, what, four days so far?"
At a town hall meeting in Virginia Beach, Biden called Palin a formidable politician and said he was impressed by her speech, which he said was stocked with "good, funny lines. . . . I'm glad they weren't about me. I was sitting there thinking, 'Whoa, zinger.' "
But he said some coverage of Palin has been out of bounds, particularly questions about her ability to raise five children, including an infant with Down syndrome, while barnstorming the country as a vice presidential candidate. "Whoever these folks are don't know any strong women," said Biden, who will debate Palin on Oct. 2 in St. Louis. "Some of the stuff said has been over the top, totally unfair, and I think it has been sexist."
Staff writers Perry Bacon Jr. and Anne E. Kornblut contributed to this report.
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