"I'm young, I'm new to the national scene, my name is Barack Obama"

[babylonsister]

Obama: McCain waging 'cynical' campaign
Obama also explains willingness to negotiate on the question of off-shore oil
Posted August 2, 2008 9:35 AM
The Swamp

by Mark Silva


Sen. Barack Obama today accused the rival presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain of waging a "cynical'' campaign, attempting to "distract'' voters from the real issues in the race with commercials comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and accusations that Obama is "playing the race card.''

Obama also attempted to explain his own apparently shifting stance on off-shore oil-drilling, suggesting that he might be able to accept some form of it as part of a comprehensive energy bill - a stance he voiced in his first day of a two-day Florida tour on Friday.

But it was on the question of negative campaigning and distractions that Obama delivered his own most pointed critique of the campaign of his Republican rival from Arizona.

"I'm young, I'm new to the national scene,'' Obama said. "My name is Barack Obama. I was born in Hawaii. I spent time in Indonesia. I do not have the typical biography of a presidential candidate. What that means is, I am unfamiliar, and people are still trying to get a fix on who I am... So... what has been an approach of the McCain campaign is to say, 'He's risky,' to try to divert focus from the fact that they don't have any ideas for dealing with the economy, or dealing with education...

"The one thing we know about the team that John McCain has assembled, because it's a carry-over from some of the folks who have worked on the Bush campaigns,'' Obama said at a press conference at Cape Canaveral, Fla. "They are very good at negative campaigns They are not so good at governing. If you think about this week, what they have been good at is distracting... (Jobs are being lost) and what was being talked about was Paris and Britney. They are clever about distracting people from the issues that really matter in peoples' lives.

"I want to talk about how we're going to put more money in people's pockets... how we can provide health care for people who don't have it,'' Obama said at the brief press conference, where he confessed that he is "beat'' after a hard week of campaigning and fielded just a few questions. "We have some of the biggest challenges that certainly I've seen in my lifetime. That is what the American people want to hear. What are the solutions to these big problems.'' Obama voiced "confidence'' that the determinant factor in the election will be voters deciding who has the answers.

more...

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/08/obama_mccain_waging_cynical_ca.html

[azmouse]

1. Distraction from the real issues is all the Reps have.

Obama in a landslide in November.

[hedgehog]

2. I looked it up. Eleven years ago, in 1997, Obama was just the new

guy in the Illinois Senate. Today he is running for President. I'd have to say the guy has some mad political skills!