McCain Camp: We Won't Talk About Race Again

John McCain's campaign felt they had to respond to Barack Obama's comment about not looking like other presidents. Campaign manager Rick Davis said Obama "played the race card." But they tell the Politico that they don't want to discuss race anymore:

Obama's aim, in the view of the McCain camp: "to delegitimize any line of attack against him," said McCain aide Steve Schmidt. He said he saw that potential trap being sprung when Obama predicted in Missouri Wednesday that the GOP nominee would attack the Democrat because he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." ...

But Schmidt said McCain had learned the lesson of Clinton's campaign, which began by taking her and her husband's affinity with African-American voters for granted but wound up seeing days and weeks consumed by racially charged gaffes and allegations, ranging from a New Hampshire supporter's suggestion that Obama had dealt drugs to Bill Clinton's own comparison of Obama's campaign to the Rev. Jesse Jackson's. ...

A former chief strategist to Hillary Clinton, Howard Wolfson, echoed Schmidt's comparison.

"I think the McCain camp watched our primary on the Democratic side very carefully and they know that any accusation of racial divisiveness can be very, very harmful for a candidate's prospects," Wolfson said on Fox News Thursday, adding that the allegations against Clinton were unfair. "They heard something that Senator Obama said and they felt they had to respond quickly to make sure that nobody got the impression that they were engaged in those kind of racial politics."

Schmidt said McCain's aides felt forced to talk about race, and that they don't plan to do it again.

Comments

[Trogenhorse]

07:51 AM on 08/03/2008

Obama's surrogates HAVE to get a hand on this. Despite how stupid it is, the ads are having an effect.
Look at his new add with Latinos.

[JaneEyrez]

08:19 AM on 08/02/2008

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/10086
I hope this information will get out to show the true colors of McCain. I believe he is an angry man who feels entitled to be the President because of his Vietnam experiences and his long years as Senator. Why else would he be willing to change his position so frequently and suck up to the very people (Bush/Rove) who torpedoed his campaign in 2000 with scurrilous rumors about his having fathered a black child. Have you ever seen the two eerily similar pictures, one of him embracing Bush and the other of his embracing one of his Vietnam captors. As a Christian I believe we are commanded to forgive our enemies, but embracing them is just creepy.

[JiminNC]

05:54 AM on 08/02/2008

I bet you don't want to talk about race now that you have that stick broken off in your wrinkled azz!

[StillAmused]

05:29 AM on 08/02/2008

Interesting. Obama predicts that they'll paint him as 'risky', a lightweight, 'different' and play to fear -- adding a self-deprecating (and spot-on) observation that he doesn't "look like" previous presidents -- and, Voilà!

They proceed to compare him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, paint him as a lightweight and risky... and play to fear, drilling down under the bedrock of his offhand comment to discover what they claim is the tattered corner of the shopworn "race card".

Someone hose down Johnny's pack of frat boys. They're overheating.

[warmonkey]

11:05 PM on 08/01/2008

And liberty and justice for all

[JaneEyrez]

07:54 PM on 08/01/2008

Is his vow not to discuss this any more just like his vow to conduct a clean campain?

[Fireback]

07:43 PM on 08/01/2008

Take a look at his add with Obama on the dollar bill that the McCain camp put out on You-tube on June 27, 2008 ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU

Now, tell me again who pulled out the race card?

[warmonkey]

11:18 PM on 08/01/2008

Despicable

[Sixtwo]

11:28 PM on 08/01/2008

Please send this to the pundits who are keeping the "race card" issue alive by showing the ad EVERY time they mention race card--100 times a day! Send to MSNBC and CNN--Fox folks don't count because they destroyed their creditibility a long time ago when it comes to race relations...

[teacupsnpots]

06:41 PM on 08/01/2008

2nd Comment

I would like to see a poll with the question as how people would vote if Hillary were the VP. I hope some strategists have thought of this simple idea and the money is there to execute it (do the accurate poll, that is.)

My gut feeling is that it would help. I'd like to be shown that I'm wrong.

Sometimes the obvious escapes the experts. Oh! They say, she would be too intrusive on his Presidency.

If I am right and he does not choose Hillary, there will not be a problem with her intrusiveness on his Presidency because he won't be President.

Something has to be done and done now.

[phae100]

12:32 AM on 08/03/2008

Get a grip. He doesn't need HRC.

[teacupsnpots]

06:37 PM on 08/01/2008

They talk about race by not talking about it.

Those GOP strategists are really good. I wish we had them on our side.

I am tired of this whining that they are lying or unethical or unfair. Time to get as dirty as they are because dirty works...

Ask Chuck Schumer - he did just that with D'Amato.

[WFV]

05:30 PM on 08/01/2008

Muy cojo, Senor Queso.

[PAposter]

06:22 PM on 08/01/2008

Very unstable, Mr. Cheese?

[karela]

05:21 PM on 08/01/2008

We won't talk about race again for about an hour until our Latinos ad comes out. Jerk.

[sydney01]

04:07 PM on 08/01/2008

Obama never accused the McCain campaign of being racist. Is Obama supposed to pretend those slanderous emails don't exist? Are we so overly PC that we can't even say the word "DIFFERENT" with out being accused of playing the race card??

[TruthandHope]

03:57 PM on 08/02/2008

According to Rick Davis, Obama played the race card "to delegitimize any line of attack against him,". Logically doesn't that only work if the attacks are based on race? And Obama can't "play the race card" by saying he doesn't look like the Presidents on the dollar bills...he doesn't. He's the first viable black candidate!

[LettuceB1]

12:11 AM on 08/03/2008

I guess Mc Same has been playing the age card since he talks about how old he is and even jokes about it on SNL!

Hypocrite!

[oxford]

04:00 PM on 08/01/2008

Then these lying S.O.B.s come out with the Latin American cr*p. How the H*LL anyone with even half a wit would believe anything these neocon PNAC fools put out there for public consumption. But, believe me, that they know "their people" will love it.

[mnash]

04:01 PM on 08/01/2008

I just saw another "ad" from the MC campaign. After watching it, I have lost all respect for this person. Talk about "losing" it??? I hope everyone gets the chance to see it. I saw it on MSNBC

[lthuedk 1]

03:48 PM on 08/01/2008

Will we be treated to Neo Con Norman Podhoretz's warning America that "the Islamofascists are coming!!!" No race card there. I'm sure it's only ideological and not racial at all. Like it was during the Viet Nam war.

It's what Neo Cons do. McCain's Brain(s) have been largely successful in suppressing the horrors of invasion and occupation because the events are covered up: The innocent humanity extinguished or displaced from Iraq is cleansed from consciousness because the images and reports are. War is an order of business and all is going well.

Neo Cons attempted to legitimize preemption, so why not add torture and acute racism to the list? They massage Fox's and talk radio's market share and do it well. At least they did.

A sizable event in Iraq or the U.S. between now and the election involving "Islamofascists" would take care of McCain's need to bring race up at all. But he probably would anyway.

http://www.light-to-dark.com/2008_A.D..html