WASHINGTON — As they promote their candidates and try to pave the way for GOP victories this year, Republicans have begun making their case to voters in advertisements featuring a new star: Barack Obama.
In North Carolina, a TV ad shows Obama's former pastor making racially charged comments. An Internet ad attacks a Pennsylvania congressman for endorsing Obama's presidential bid. A New Mexico radio ad says Obama disrespects "the American way of life."
In Louisiana, a TV ad attacking Obama's healthcare agenda as "radical" proved so threatening that the House candidate it targeted, Democrat Don Cazayoux, distanced himself from Obama on Thursday, issuing a stern statement saying that he "has not endorsed any national politician."
The flurry of attacks underscores how Republicans and their allies are sensing opportunity in the increasingly battered image of Obama, whom many Democrats have viewed as their best hope for appealing across ideological lines and helping their party win in conservative areas.
The ads also are playing into a debate among Democratic officials about Obama's electability in November, a discussion that gained urgency after his 9-percentage-point loss to Hillary Rodham Clinton in this week's Pennsylvania primary. That contest provided more evidence that the Illinois senator has had trouble winning over seniors and working-class white voters, who are seen as important to a Democratic victory this fall.
Now, many Democratic leaders are trying to determine whether they are on the verge of nominating a candidate who, in addition to asking voters to accept him as the first African American president, could be vulnerable to being cast as too far out of the mainstream.
Clinton's tumultuous presence on the national stage long has made her a favorite target of Republican attacks. But GOP strategists said the negative six-week campaign in Pennsylvania produced reams of material that, for the first time, laid out for them a clear pathway for attacking Obama.
They pointed to the much-publicized sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., Obama's pastor of 20 years; his past association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers; and the senator's own statement at a San Francisco-area fundraiser that "bitter" people in small towns "cling" to faith, guns and anti-immigrant sentiments.
