Desperate McCain Campaign Settles For Familiar Tactics

The McCain campaign reached into the stand-by Republic playbook Saturday and launched the first of what figures to be a string of attack ads on Barack Obama. The television spot accuses Obama of skipping a visit with wounded troops in Germany in favor of a photo op playing basketball.

The Obama campaign reported on Thursday that the visit with the wounded troops would be scrapped after the Pentagon advised them that the visit would be inappropriate as part of other campaign events. This information did not deter the McCain campaign from releasing the ad, however. The spot shows Obama sinking a three-point shot while playing basketball with troops in Kuwait – not Germany.

This tactic is a re-release of sorts; a familiar and predictable card that Republicans almost always play when momentum shifts. In this case, McCain never has had momentum, and essentially insisted that Obama visit Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither campaign advisors nor McCain could have imagined the size of the international response to the Obama visit, including US troops standing in lines to meet the Senator. Clearly, the McCain campaign in some part created the international media monster against which they now face off. Going deep down and dirty with an old Republican stand-by accentuates just how desperate they are.