Here We Go Again

In late spring, the McCain campaign convened a focus group with undecided voters in a swing state, trying to determine if lashing out against Obama would cause blowback against McCain. An adviser, who declined to be named discussing internal strategy, tells NEWSWEEK they quizzed how voters reacted to Obama's remark that working-class men and women were "bitter" and "cling" to "guns or religion," as well as McCain's attacks on Obama for failing to take political risks and do the right thing for the country. The results were "positive" for McCain, the adviser says. Not long after, the man who ran Bush's "war room" in 2004, Steve Schmidt, took over day-to-day operation of the campaign. Schmidt, known as The Bullet for his shaved head, specializes in staying on message.

As much as McCain, Obama has called for a new kind of politics that rises above partisan backbiting. But he, or more commonly his surrogates, routinely take potshots at McCain. Indeed, the McCain advisers insist they are just fighting fire with fire by aggressively going after Obama. They note, for instance, that when a radio host warming up a McCain rally pointedly used Obama's middle name (Hussein), McCain repudiated the remarks and called for an apology. But when another radio host at an Obama rally called McCain a "warmonger," Obama did not personally disavow the comment. (Instead his campaign dismissed the remark in a press release.) "It has not escaped our attention that since the Indiana primary, Senator Obama has not given a speech in which he hasn't attacked John McCain," says McCain strategist Mark Salter. "We're no longer going to put up with that."

Presidential campaigns resemble the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or the Sharks and the Jets ("You started it. No, you started it"). When it comes to self-defense, Obama is in a tricky spot. It has become Democratic orthodoxy that the Obama campaign cannot allow the Republicans to "define" Obama the way they did John Kerry in 2004—as an elitist flip-flopper. Obama has tried to play it cool, to not let traditional Rovean tactics get under his skin, the way Republican attacks usually do with Democrats. It's particularly perilous for Obama, who has sometimes looked arrogant while trying to act unfazed. Showing real anger at GOP fire could be risky for Obama. "There are limits to what Obama can do in response," says a Democratic operative who did not wish to be identified discussing the touchy issue of race. "An angry white guy can get away with angry responses, an angry black guy can't."

On the other hand, Obama can't afford to play it too cool. Asked if he minded a particularly tough Democratic debate last April, Obama mimed rapper Jay-Z doing a "dirt off the shoulder" brush with a flick of his hand. The move played well with Obama's young base, but rubbed some older Democrats the wrong way. Lately, The Washington Post reported last week, Obama has been keeping his distance from rappers. Last week Ludacris released a single called "Politics," praising Obama but calling Hillary Clinton a b–––h and suggesting that McCain should be in a wheelchair. Obama's campaign condemned the song.

Last week, in Union, Mo., Obama tried to distance himself from racial or ethnic stereotyping while taking a dig at his attackers, telling audiences that "John McCain and the Republicans" are going "to try to scare you about me … 'He's got a funny name, and he doesn't look like all the presidents on the dollar bills'." This apparently provoked the charge from Davis that Obama is "playing the race card, from the bottom of the deck." (McCain aides were angry because Obama specifically accused McCain, by name, of scare tactics, when the purveyors are usually anonymous bloggers and radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, who is unconnected to the campaign.) By the weekend, both campaigns were bickering furiously over who played the race card first.

The press was clearly enjoying the squabble, and there is no doubt the reporters egg on the campaigns to flame each other. But the attack-counterattack culture has become slightly overwhelming, even to the press. Reporters are now summoned to two or three conference calls each day to hear campaign operatives bash the other side. Reporters' BlackBerrys fill with attack e-mails at all hours of the day and night from party hacks and bloggers "feeding the beast," in campaign parlance. The avalanche has produced some gallows humor on the campaign planes. Recently, a Democratic National Committee press aide named Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza began flooding electronic mailboxes with unfavorable clips about McCain. A couple of weeks ago, a reporter on McCain's plane opened his e-mail and found his IN box clogged with messages from her. ("Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza?" the reporter asked sarcastically, wondering who this new name was.) The volume, velocity and (probably) viciousness of messages like these will just grow. And it's only early August.

With Sarah Kliff, Suzanne Smalley and Eve Conant

© 2008