McCain Campaign Leaks On Resuming The High Road Prove False: Ayers Issue Extensively Used

Late yesterday there was much new and old media buzz about rumblings that the McCain campaign supposedly was planning to resume the high road, drop it’s emerging push on using the Ayers story and get back other substantive matters — such as talking about the economy plus other issues that polls indicate worried voters’ care about.

Yours truly got an email from a co-blogger and two emails from readers about a story in The Politico about the McCain campaign changing its strategy. Some of it is covered in this post here.

But as of today there are no signs that the McCain campaign plans to do that at all. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

This morning on the Today Show a McCain spokesperson started out by saying voters don’t care about the Ayers story and then launched into charges about the Ayers story, using as the argument — in effect a lawyeristic cover story — that until Obama answered the questions about the issue she said no one really cared about ….the issue that the McCain campaign is raising that no one cares about in ads, rallies and on TV….this issue that really doesn’t matter will be out there.

In fact, MSNBC’s First Read says this is part of an ongoing debate within the McCain campaign, according to Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Carrie Dann:

The McCain campaign seems to be having a bit of an internal struggle about how much to push the Ayers story. Today, it’s up with a Web ad, hoping for some viral pickup and free media attention. But yesterday, it was notable that Ayers wasn’t mentioned at any of the McCain-Palin rallies. But that didn’t mean character attacks on Obama were missing; the campaign decided to up the ante a bit and have Cindy McCain hit Obama, on Iraq. But as we’ve asked before are voters listening at all to these attacks as the Dow continues to plummet and as newspapers continue to run headlines like this one: “U.S. May Take Ownership Stake In Banks To Ease Credit Crisis”? And this is the dilemma: The McCain camp is trying to tie Obama’s answers about Ayers to what voters can believe about him regarding the economy. The problem for McCain is that every minute he spends on Obama is a minute he’s not spending talking to voters about the economy and the issue is just that big right now for the electorate. Is anyone outside the base responding to the Ayers stuff?

Some Democrats flatly say McCain is now going for a scorched-earth policy and give specifics about how ugly this is now getting.

What does it mean?

1. Whoever wins the White House will, in effect, get a consolation prize. The odds are good that he’ll serve one term. Former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta recently said: “It’s close to an impossible situation. The next guy, whoever he is, will be a one-term president — if he is lucky.” If McCain wins using these “scorched earth” policies which are clearly intended to win the election by convincing voters that Obama is dangerous — that is indeed the thinly-veiled subtext — he’ll take office having a large chunk of the country personally furious at him and Democrats not inclined to reach across the aisle to help him out. He would take office as a highly polarizing figure who won on raising his foe’s character negatives rather than on his offered solutions.

2. Many believe McCain has effectively lost his 2000 “brand” and there is some debate as to why this happened. Some Democratic strategists now see a landslide in the making, although Campaign 2008 has provided many examples of how confidently-asserted pundit and political pro predictions later proved simplistic and inaccurate. The question would then become: who would a post-election John McCain be if he loses?

More often than not, candidates who lose (Democrats Al Gore, John Kerry, Republicans Barry Goldwater, Bob Dole) walk away with their integrity intact, perhaps being blasted by some partisans for not doing enough or making some key strategic mistakes. McCain is now obliterating any vestiges of his 2000 brand — a brand that earned him the adoration of independent voters and many young people on campuses who saw him as a person of substance and principle who would never sell his soul to do things to win an election. Were those who supported him in 2000 just a bunch of gullible idealists?

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign’s attacks are also helping the Obama campaign — with money. Obama’s campaign is using them to raise funds. Note the smart strategy of asking for even $5 in donations. Here’s part of an email sent out under Vice Presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden’s name:

The McCain campaign is on the ropes, and sadly it’s no surprise they’re responding with attacks and outright lies.

I’ve heard some pretty unspeakable things in the past few days — deeply offensive smears that we’ll hear over and over again until Election Day.

John McCain and Governor Palin are setting a new low in presidential politics with their dishonorable campaign.

Barack and I are out there every day fighting back. But we need your help.

Make a donation of $5 or more right now to show John McCain and Governor Palin that when they attack us with lies and smears, it literally makes our campaign stronger.

And at the end of the email:

So what’s left for the McCain campaign? Negative attacks and lies.

And it’s even worse from some of the well-funded outside groups supporting McCain, whose sole purpose is tearing Barack down with smears.

Instead of focusing on the issues that really matter, our opponents are doing everything they can to encourage this toxic atmosphere.

We cannot stand by and let them get away with it.

We need to increase the cost of these desperate tactics for McCain’s campaign. Please make a donation of $5 or more right now.

https://donate.barackobama.com/costofnegativity

Thanks for your support,

Joe

Note the name of the link, which underscores the email’s message.

UPDATE: The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza notes that there are serious problems in McCain’s Ayers attack. Go to the link to read his entire piece but here are some key highlights:

But, even if McCain does eventually incorporate Ayers into a paid media campaign — as Politico’s Mike Allen says he will — there are several reasons to believe that it is not the silver bullet that some within the Republican Party hope believe it to be.

First and foremost, the economic crisis that has brought Wall Street and, very nearly, Congress, to its knees has focused voters’ attention on their own finances in a way that has drowned out nearly other issue.

Given the enormity of the economic issue, it’s impossible for McCain to “turn the page” (in the words of adviser Greg Strimple) on the economy. The economy is, without doubt, the central battleground of the race today and is almost certain to dominate the political dialogue over the next 26 days.

McCain must find a way to turn the issue of the economy from a net negative for his candidacy into — at least — a neutral force before moving on to attacks on Ayers or anything else. Until voters believe McCain understands their struggles and worries on the economy, it’s likely they will dismiss as frivolous attacks on Obama’s past relationships.

And:

The other major problem with the Ayers attack is that the incidents in questions are not only decades old but also have already been prosecuted in the media during the Democratic primaries.

…Recognizing that difficulty, the McCain campaign — in their new web video and in a series of recent statements — is focused not on the Obama-Ayers relationship per se but rather on Obama’s unwillingness to acknowledge the depth of that relationship. It’s the old “cover up is worse than the crime” strategy.

This explains the lawyeristic and somewhat convoluted performance of McCain’s spokeswoman on the Today Show this morning. Cillizza concludes:

McCain’s campaign knows full well that it cannot win this election by simply running ads that make note of the fact that Obama and Ayers had a relationship — the depth of which remains disputed. To make Ayers stick, it has to be part of a broader attack on Obama’s judgment, candor and truthfulness. It may be part of the answer when trying to determine how McCain can come back but it is not the only answer.

Re-read my earlier analysis above the update on what this means.

UPDATE II: And it’s October so naturally the speculation has begun about whether the polling trends will be turned around by some kind of October surprise.