Publisher’s Commentary: Vacation’s Over; Obama Comes Back Swinging

Referring to McCain, Obama said: “This guy obviously doesn’t pump his own gas. He obviously doesn’t do his own shopping. He’s obviously not paying his own bills.”

[Elections 2008]

Yesterday Professor Barack Obama was replaced by candidate Barack Obama.

The political fighter in the Illinois Senator has emerged in the last few days—and he’s hitting Senator John McCain where It counts the most; on the economy and Iraq.

As widely anticipated, Sen. Obama has returned charged up after his Hawaii vacation. He had endured some of Papa McCain’s best shots and now seems to be taking the Arizona senator to school.

Yesterday at a campaign appearance in New Mexico, he kept reminding voters that electing McCain would mean a continuation of the Bush/Cheney administration. Under Bush the American has severely weakened –inflation, the mortgage meltdown, credit market collapse, spiraling energy cost, $500 billion deficit, 500,000 lost jobs in the last few months alone– and the nation remains bogged down in the costly and disastrous Iraq war.

Monday in a town hall meeting before a school gym packed with 2,000 people, here’s what Obama said: “Everywhere I go people have told me ‘Oh, I’m getting nervous. The Republicans, they’re so mean. What are we going to do…..? They did it to John Kerry. They did it to Gore. They tried to do it to Clinton, they did it to Dukakis. That’s what they do. That’s their politics. They don’t know how to govern, but they know how to run a negative campaign. But I’m here to tell you in Albuquerque, that it’s not going to work this time.”

Clearly, Obama knows that he can’t be professorial when dealing with the Republican vicious attack dogs. John McCain, who had vowed to run a clean and respectable campaign changed course when he found himself trailing Obama in national polls last month. He has unleashed attack ads that have been ridiculed, including one in which he compared Sen. Obama’s celebrity to those of Paris Hilton’s and Britney Spears’s, two blondes known for indiscretions; many also saw subliminal race-baiting in those ads.

Moreover, while in 2004 McCain criticized the false campaign attacks by independent Republican operatives against Democratic candidate John Kerry, the Arizona senator has kept quite about the bogus allegations made in the Obama Nation, the hatchet by writer Jerome Corsi; the book was published by Simon & Schuster and edited by Republican hack Mary Matalin.

Yesterday, Obama linked McCain solidly to the discredited Bush administration when he pointed out that a few months ago; the Arizona senator had generous words for Bush’s stewardship over the economy.

McCain at the time had said the economy had shown “great progress.” Obama yesterday said: “Mr. McCain, let me explain to you. The economic disaster is happening right now. Maybe you haven’t noticed.”

Many in the audience erupted when Obama recalled that then McCain economic adviser, Phil Gramm had said Americans were “whining” about their alleged economic woes and that much of the problem was a matter of perception. Graham said the country suffered from a “mental depression.”

Referring to McCain, Obama said: “This guy obviously doesn’t pump his own gas. He obviously doesn’t do his own shopping. He’s obviously not paying his own bills.”

Obama also set the stage for next week’s Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado, with its intended unity theme, by offering some generous words for the Bill Clinton era: “During Bill Clinton’s era in the 1990s incomes for the average family went up by $6, 000,” Sen. Obama said, and added:  “During George Bush’s reign in The White House we have seen the average family income go down by $1,000.”

Hillary Clinton is to speak next Tuesday at the Convention, followed by her husband on Wednesday; Obama will deliver his rallying cry next Thursday in an outdoor stadium before an anticipated crowd of 75,000 supporters.

To comment or to subscribe to or advertise in New York’s leading Pan African weekly investigative newspaper, or to send us a news tip, please call (212) 481-7745 or send a note to [email protected]

Also visit out sister publications Harlem Business News www.harlembusinessnews.com and The Groove music magazine at www.thegroovemag.com

“Speaking Truth To Empower.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *