GOP takes aim at Obama's character in new attack

CLEVELAND — Sen. John McCain's allies have seized on a new and aggressive line of attack against Sen. Barack Obama by casting the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee as an opportunistic and self-obsessed politician who will do and say anything to get elected.

McCain typically leaves the sharpened criticism to others, in the hope of being able to claim the high ground of conducting a "respectful" campaign. But the abrupt shift in tone among his paid staff members, volunteer surrogates and other Republican staples of the cable-news circuit is unmistakable, and resembles the unified message the GOP used to paint Democratic candidate John Kerry as a flip-flopper in the 2004 campaign.

It also reflects a growing belief among McCain's strategists that the campaign for the White House will be won or lost based on voters' view of Obama's character. In a strategy memo released Thursday, McCain's top political adviser accused Obama of "self-serving partisanship."

"In his time on the national stage, he has consistently put his party and his self-interest first," McCain strategist Steve Schmidt said in the memo.

He later said the campaign intends to point out "every day" that Obama broke his promise to accept public financing for his campaign, and that he has not made good on his pledge to debate his Republican opponent any time and anywhere.

"It's a statement of fact that he discards people, and he discards positions when they become inconvenient for him," Schmidt said Friday. "When politicians say one thing and then do another, like Sen. Obama has done, voters wonder about the steadfastness of the character of the person sitting in the Oval Office."

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said he is not surprised by the sharp attacks: "It's our view that's exactly the politics that the American people are sick and tired of. The only ideas they have to promote are the failed ones for the last eight years."

Targeting a politician's character flaws is a time-tested strategy, but it is a complicated argument for McCain, who has also shifted his positions in the course of the campaign. This month, with gas prices soaring, the Republican reversed his position on offshore oil drilling.

The aggressive rhetoric aimed at Obama began to emerge June 22, when Sen. Lindsey Graham, a national co-chair of the McCain campaign, appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" and took direct aim at Obama's integrity. "He's a calculating politician," Graham said. "He wants to win beyond anything else, even more than keeping his word."

That theme was repeated Thursday in a conference call with reporters about the Supreme Court's decision to affirm the Second Amendment right to own a gun. McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann complained about what he said was Obama's constantly changing positions.

And Karl Rove, the former political adviser to President Bush who is quietly consulting with McCain's top strategists, offered this advice in his Wall Street Journal column:

"Mr. McCain will be helped if he uses Mr. Obama's actions to paint his opponent as someone driven by an all-powerful instinct to look out only for himself," Rove wrote Thursday. "In a contest over who is willing to put principle above personal ambition and self-interest, John McCain, a war hero and a former POW, wins hands down."

Mark Rozell, a professor of political science at George Mason University, said the similarity of the attacks suggests a concerted effort to "build a picture" about Obama's character before the political newcomer has a chance to convince people of the truth of his rhetoric.

"These things are always orchestrated," Rozell said. "I have no doubt there has been a running conversation within Republican circles about what the theme should be in going after Obama and how that theme could be reinforced."

The new Republican theme moves the campaign argument away from policy disagreements — of which there are many — to the realm of character, where McCain aides think their candidate is untouchable. But the tactic has potential risks for McCain, who has said repeatedly over the past several months that he will run a "respectful" campaign that does not engage in the politics of personal destruction.

Two days ago, McCain repeated that promise as he rode his Straight Talk Express bus across Ohio.

In a news conference with reporters Friday, McCain decried "gotcha" politics, but on Saturday he told a group of donors, "You know, this election is about trust and trusting people's word. And unfortunately, apparently on several items Senator Obama's word cannot be trusted."

Republican strategists said it is not as clear that attacks on Obama's character will work this year, when voters have said in surveys that they are tired of political vitriol.

Craig Shirley, a GOP consultant and biographer based in Virginia, said substantive issues are sometimes more powerful during a campaign than a focus on character.

"Bush tried the same thing in 1992, and Dole tried the same thing in 1996 — trying to make the election a character issue — both failing, of course," Shirley said of George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole. "If these things were simply about character, then the two war heroes the GOP nominated in 1992 and 1996 would have beaten the draft-dodging, pot-smoking womanizer."