Obama ratchets up negative advertising
In a departure for his campaign, TV and radio spots critical of rival John McCain are airing in battleground states.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Barack Obama, under persistent attack from his Republican rival, is intensifying his own negative ad campaign targeting Sen. John McCain in key battleground states.
In the last two weeks, the Obama campaign has aired at least eight new TV and radio ads accusing McCain of failing to protect U.S. jobs, favoring oil companies and turning a blind eye to the economic suffering of working-class Americans.
Many of the TV ads also prominently feature photos of McCain with President Bush.
The negative ads, running in 18 states, hew to themes that Democrats and groups allied with the party have been hitting for months. But they mark a change for the Obama campaign, which until recently concentrated its advertising money on casting the freshman Illinois senator in a positive glow.
The sharply worded ads match toughening rhetoric from Obama himself on the campaign trail.
"The conventional wisdom is that this election is going to be a referendum on Barack Obama," said Dan Schnur, a California Republican who worked on McCain's 2000 presidential campaign and now heads the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC.
"His people are smart enough to realize this doesn't necessarily work to their benefit," Schnur said.
Obama's negative turn, however, runs the risk of undermining his promise to bring change to the political system. It may also compete with the candidate's other messages, namely that he is ready to be commander in chief.
GOP strategist Frank Luntz said that Sen. John F. Kerry failed to make such a case for himself as the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee.
"Kerry did an effective job of showing that Bush didn't deserve to be president," Luntz cautioned. "But 'none of the above' isn't on the ballot. And in the end, Kerry did not give voters enough of a reason to choose him."
The Obama campaign, which would not release details about the ad buys, has kept relatively quiet about the advertising, eschewing the now-standard practice of touting new ads to reporters in hopes of getting free coverage. The ads are not posted on Obama's website.
"It's revealing that Barack Obama attempts to run a campaign under the thin veil of a positive message when he has consistently shown that he's running a negative campaign," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.
Bill Burton, a spokesman for the Obama camp, said the new ad campaign was "no secret," noting that the ads can be seen on YouTube.
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