Abandoning the Issues

Desperate times call for desperate measures and the McCain campaign is certainly entering desperate times. New polls in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada now show Barack Obama leading in all seven of these crucial states as election day approaches.

With just over three weeks remaining in the race for the presidency, and an economy that continues to spiral downward, the McCain campaign has decided that the only way they can win the election is through aggressive personal attacks on Obama. Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported on this shift in strategy and quoted a senior Republican strategist as saying "we're going to get a little tougher. We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here." In the following few days, Sarah Palin began a series of harsh attacks tying Obama to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, and accusing Obama of "palling around with terrorists."

Although last night's debate was generally cordial, the McCain campaign came out swinging again this morning when Cindy McCain invoked the service of her two sons, "the day that Sen. Obama cast a vote to not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body let me tell you." This follows a statement she made yesterday calling Obama's campaign "the dirtiest campaign in American history."