McCain’s script
“How many times have you heard commentators refer to Russia’s invasion of Georgia as a “3 a.m. moment” for the presidential candidates?” Byron York asks in USA Today.
“The pundits are referring, of course, to Hillary Clinton’s famous TV ad arguing that Barack Obama doesn’t have the experience to handle a middle-of-the-night, out-of-nowhere national security crisis. Now, the thinking goes, the situation in Georgia gives John McCain an opportunity to claim an advantage over Obama in foreign affairs. And he’s doing it — with a script drawn straight from Clinton,” Mr. York said.
“It might not seem smart to model a key aspect of your campaign on a candidate who lost — to the same guy you’re running against, no less. But that is exactly what Team McCain is doing.
“’Clinton’s campaign was a fabulous real-time laboratory in how you run against a movement candidate,’ Nicolle Wallace, a McCain adviser and spokeswoman, told me a few days ago. The McCainiacs have studied the New York senator’s losing effort very, very carefully, and they’ve drawn some lessons from it.
“Lesson No. 1 is that the ’3 a.m.’ ad worked.
“’The ’Is he ready to lead?’ question in our celebrity ad is the same question that the 3 a.m. ad asked,’ Wallace said. Clinton portrayed a blissfully sleeping child threatened by unspecified world events, while McCain went over the top with images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, but the message was the same: Obama is not ready.
“It appears to be working, at least for now. Although still behind in most nationwide polls, McCain is inching toward Obama in a number of surveys, including those in key battleground states.”
Obama vs. Thomas
“Barack Obama likes to portray himself as a centrist politician who wants to unite the country, but occasionally his postpartisan mask slips. That was the case at Saturday night’s Saddleback Church forum, when Mr. Obama chose to demean Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas,” the Wall Street Journal says in an editorial.
Pastor Rick Warren asked each presidential candidate which Justices he would not have nominated. Mr. McCain said, ’with all due respect’ the four most liberal sitting justices because of his different judicial philosophy.
“Mr. Obama took a lower road, replying first that ’that’s a good one,’ and then adding that ’I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. I don’t think that he, I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution.’ The Democrat added that he also wouldn’t have appointed Antonin Scalia, and perhaps not John Roberts, though he assured the audience that at least they were smart enough for the job.
“So let’s see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri attorney general’s office, served as an assistant secretary of education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and sat for a year on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s second most prominent court. Since his ’elevation’ to the High Court in 1991, he has also shown himself to be a principled and scholarly jurist.
“Meanwhile, as he bids to be America’s commander in chief, Mr. Obama isn’t yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note of his U.S. Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a ’community organizer’ and law school lecturer. Justice Thomas’ judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama’s presidential resume by any measure. And when it comes to rising from difficult circumstances, Justice Thomas’s rural Georgian upbringing makes Mr. Obama’s story look like easy street.”
The Clintons
“The latest question for the Democratic Party is whether its presumptive nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, has given the Clintons too large a role in next week’s national convention,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says in an editorial.
“While Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, correctly ceded the race for the nomination to Mr. Obama and pledged to work for his victory in November, there is suspicion and uncertainty about what the Clintons are up to,” the newspaper said.
“Mr. Obama, nevertheless, is playing the matter correctly. In quest of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters, who potentially are more attached to her than to the Democratic Party, he is giving both Clintons maximum exposure at the party’s signature event. …
“Mr. Obama, in his treatment of the Clintons, is showing generosity consistent with his pledge to bring Americans together. In doing so he is also laying down a marker that says to the Clintons and the party that if during the campaign they undercut him, or do not work sincerely for his election, a Democratic loss in November will lie on their heads.”
Not No. 1
Rep. Steve Kagen’s congressional campaign claims in a fundraising e-mail that former White House political adviser Karl Rove called him the top target this year — but Mr. Rove says he has no recollection of ever saying that.
“Karl Rove has already declared Congressman Steve Kagen their 1 candidate to beat in 2008,” says the e-mail from the freshman Wisconsin Democrat, who is seeking re-election to his House seat. “That means unlimited special-interest money to pay for their negative campaign.”
In addition to Mr. Rove’s denial, an Associated Press search of Nexis could find no stories that quote Mr. Rove making that comment. Mr. Kagen’s campaign offered sources, but none provided any solid documentation to back up the assertion.
One, a January 2007 White House Office of Political Affairs memo titled “2008 House Targets: Top 20,” lists Mr. Kagen but also 19 other congressional Democrats. Another is a September 2006 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog about Mr. Rove being the guest at a Washington fundraiser for Mr. Kagen’s GOP opponent, John Gard. But that makes no mention of Mr. Rove calling Mr. Kagen the No. 1 target, and in any event, the fundraiser was for the 2006 race, not this year’s, which features a Kagen-Gard rematch.
This isn’t Kagen’s first tussle with Mr. Rove. Last year, Mr. Kagen apologized to constituents in his first month on the job after telling a group of peace activists that he had taunted Mr. Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney and first lady Laura Bush at a White House reception for new lawmakers.
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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