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August 1, 2008
McCain Camp Says Obama Is Playing ‘Race Card’
By MICHAEL COOPER and MICHAEL POWELL
ORLANDO, Fla. — Senator John McCain’s campaign accused Senator Barack Obama on Thursday of playing “the race card,” citing his remarks that Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”
The exchange injected racial politics front and center into the general election campaign for the first time, after it became a subtext in the primary between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
It came as the McCain campaign was intensifying its attacks, trying to throw its Democratic opponent off course before the conventions.
“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, charged in a statement with which Mr. McCain later said he agreed. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”
In leveling the charge, Mr. Davis was referring to comments that Mr. Obama made Wednesday in Missouri when he reacted to the increasingly negative tone and negative advertisements from the McCain campaign, including one that likens Mr. Obama’s celebrity status to that of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
“So nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Mr. Obama said in Springfield, Mo., echoing earlier remarks. “You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky. That’s essentially the argument they’re making.”
With his rejoinder about playing “the race card,” Mr. Davis effectively assured that race would once again become an unavoidable issue as voters face an election in which, for the first time, one of the major parties’ nominees is African-American.
And with its criticism, the McCain campaign was ensuring that Mr. Obama’s race — he is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas — would again be a factor in coverage of the presidential race. On Thursday, it took the spotlight from Mr. Obama when he had sought to attack Mr. McCain on energy issues.
The tactic could cut both ways: it might tap into the qualms some white, working-class voters in crucial swing states may have about a black candidate, or it could ricochet back against the McCain campaign, which has been accused even by some fellow Republicans of engaging in overly negative campaigning in recent days.
The remarks put Mr. Obama’s campaign, which has tried to keep him from being pigeonholed or defined by race, in a delicate position. He did not address the matter himself on Thursday, and his campaign gingerly tried to tamp down the issue, saying he did not believe that Mr. McCain had tried to use race as an issue.
“This is a race about big challenges — a slumping economy, a broken foreign policy and an energy crisis for everyone but the oil companies,” said Robert Gibbs, a campaign spokesman. “Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue, but he does believe they’re using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign. And those are the issues he’ll continue to talk about.”
The sparring over race thrust an unpredictable element into the campaign. Contests have often been influenced by racial imagery, whether stark, like the Willie Horton advertisements run against Michael S. Dukakis in the 1988 presidential race, or subtle.
In the 2006 Senate race in Tennessee, Republicans ran an advertisement against a black candidate, the Democrat Harold E. Ford Jr., that featured a white woman saying, with a wink, “Harold, call me.” Some have drawn parallels between that commercial and the McCain campaign’s advertisement juxtaposing Ms. Spears and Ms. Hilton with Mr. Obama.
Mr. McCain addressed Mr. Davis’s “race card” comments later Thursday. “I agree with it, and I’m disappointed that Senator Obama would say the things he’s saying,” Mr. McCain said aboard his campaign bus in Racine, Wis., according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Davis’s comments came as the McCain campaign has adopted a far more aggressive, negative posture toward Mr. Obama in recent days, trying to define him as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency. But until this week, the McCain campaign had not invoked race.
Mr. Obama has been the victim of some racist and racially tinged attacks this year, particularly during the primaries.
Underground e-mail campaigns have spread the false rumor that he is Muslim and questioned his patriotism by falsely charging that he does not put his hand over his heart when the Pledge of Allegiance is recited. A button spotted outside the Texas Republican convention asked, “If Obama Is President ... Will We Still Call It the White House?”
But Mr. McCain has condemned racist campaigning and has denounced Republican groups that tried to make an issue of inflammatory statements made by Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and one of his own supporters who referred to Mr. Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama” at a McCain rally.
Mr. Obama has been more explicit about the role of race in attacks against him in the past, but he is rarely specific about who is behind them. “We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run,” he said in June. “They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. ‘He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?’ ”
Steve Schmidt, who runs the day-to-day operations of the McCain campaign, said the campaign had been moved to issue the statement in part because it saw the damage done during the Democratic primary when Obama supporters made accusations that former President Bill Clinton had been racially insensitive, or worse.
“The McCain campaign was compelled to respond to this outrageous attack because we will not allow John McCain to be smeared by Senator Obama as a racist for offering legitimate criticism,” he said. “We have waited for months with a sick feeling knowing this moment would come because we watched it incur with President Clinton. Say whatever you want about President Clinton, his record on this issue is above reproach.”
In the Democratic primary campaign, Mr. Obama’s supporters at several occasions accused the Clinton campaign of using racially charged tactics, particularly after Mr. Clinton equated Mr. Obama’s victory in the South Carolina primary with the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s victory in the nominating contest there in 1988. Mr. Clinton himself then complained in a radio interview in April that the Obama campaign had “played the race card on me.”
Howard Wolfson, who was the communications director of the Clinton campaign, said, “The McCain campaign has obviously been watching our primary very closely and recognized how damaging it had been to be tagged with the charge of race baiting.”
Michael Cooper reported from Orlando, Fla., and Michael Powell from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Adam Nagourney and Michael Falcone contributed reporting from Washington.
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McCain Camp Says Obama Is Playing ‘Race Card’
By MICHAEL COOPER and MICHAEL POWELL
ORLANDO, Fla. — Senator John McCain’s campaign accused Senator Barack Obama on Thursday of playing “the race card,” citing his remarks that Republicans would try to scare voters by pointing out that he “doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”
The exchange injected racial politics front and center into the general election campaign for the first time, after it became a subtext in the primary between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
It came as the McCain campaign was intensifying its attacks, trying to throw its Democratic opponent off course before the conventions.
“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck,” Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, charged in a statement with which Mr. McCain later said he agreed. “It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.”
In leveling the charge, Mr. Davis was referring to comments that Mr. Obama made Wednesday in Missouri when he reacted to the increasingly negative tone and negative advertisements from the McCain campaign, including one that likens Mr. Obama’s celebrity status to that of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.
“So nobody really thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face, so what they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Mr. Obama said in Springfield, Mo., echoing earlier remarks. “You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky. That’s essentially the argument they’re making.”
With his rejoinder about playing “the race card,” Mr. Davis effectively assured that race would once again become an unavoidable issue as voters face an election in which, for the first time, one of the major parties’ nominees is African-American.
And with its criticism, the McCain campaign was ensuring that Mr. Obama’s race — he is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas — would again be a factor in coverage of the presidential race. On Thursday, it took the spotlight from Mr. Obama when he had sought to attack Mr. McCain on energy issues.
The tactic could cut both ways: it might tap into the qualms some white, working-class voters in crucial swing states may have about a black candidate, or it could ricochet back against the McCain campaign, which has been accused even by some fellow Republicans of engaging in overly negative campaigning in recent days.
The remarks put Mr. Obama’s campaign, which has tried to keep him from being pigeonholed or defined by race, in a delicate position. He did not address the matter himself on Thursday, and his campaign gingerly tried to tamp down the issue, saying he did not believe that Mr. McCain had tried to use race as an issue.
“This is a race about big challenges — a slumping economy, a broken foreign policy and an energy crisis for everyone but the oil companies,” said Robert Gibbs, a campaign spokesman. “Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue, but he does believe they’re using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign. And those are the issues he’ll continue to talk about.”
The sparring over race thrust an unpredictable element into the campaign. Contests have often been influenced by racial imagery, whether stark, like the Willie Horton advertisements run against Michael S. Dukakis in the 1988 presidential race, or subtle.
In the 2006 Senate race in Tennessee, Republicans ran an advertisement against a black candidate, the Democrat Harold E. Ford Jr., that featured a white woman saying, with a wink, “Harold, call me.” Some have drawn parallels between that commercial and the McCain campaign’s advertisement juxtaposing Ms. Spears and Ms. Hilton with Mr. Obama.
Mr. McCain addressed Mr. Davis’s “race card” comments later Thursday. “I agree with it, and I’m disappointed that Senator Obama would say the things he’s saying,” Mr. McCain said aboard his campaign bus in Racine, Wis., according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Davis’s comments came as the McCain campaign has adopted a far more aggressive, negative posture toward Mr. Obama in recent days, trying to define him as arrogant, out of touch and unprepared for the presidency. But until this week, the McCain campaign had not invoked race.
Mr. Obama has been the victim of some racist and racially tinged attacks this year, particularly during the primaries.
Underground e-mail campaigns have spread the false rumor that he is Muslim and questioned his patriotism by falsely charging that he does not put his hand over his heart when the Pledge of Allegiance is recited. A button spotted outside the Texas Republican convention asked, “If Obama Is President ... Will We Still Call It the White House?”
But Mr. McCain has condemned racist campaigning and has denounced Republican groups that tried to make an issue of inflammatory statements made by Mr. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., and one of his own supporters who referred to Mr. Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama” at a McCain rally.
Mr. Obama has been more explicit about the role of race in attacks against him in the past, but he is rarely specific about who is behind them. “We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run,” he said in June. “They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. ‘He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?’ ”
Steve Schmidt, who runs the day-to-day operations of the McCain campaign, said the campaign had been moved to issue the statement in part because it saw the damage done during the Democratic primary when Obama supporters made accusations that former President Bill Clinton had been racially insensitive, or worse.
“The McCain campaign was compelled to respond to this outrageous attack because we will not allow John McCain to be smeared by Senator Obama as a racist for offering legitimate criticism,” he said. “We have waited for months with a sick feeling knowing this moment would come because we watched it incur with President Clinton. Say whatever you want about President Clinton, his record on this issue is above reproach.”
In the Democratic primary campaign, Mr. Obama’s supporters at several occasions accused the Clinton campaign of using racially charged tactics, particularly after Mr. Clinton equated Mr. Obama’s victory in the South Carolina primary with the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s victory in the nominating contest there in 1988. Mr. Clinton himself then complained in a radio interview in April that the Obama campaign had “played the race card on me.”
Howard Wolfson, who was the communications director of the Clinton campaign, said, “The McCain campaign has obviously been watching our primary very closely and recognized how damaging it had been to be tagged with the charge of race baiting.”
Michael Cooper reported from Orlando, Fla., and Michael Powell from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Adam Nagourney and Michael Falcone contributed reporting from Washington.
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