After forgoing character attacks during the second presidential debate, Republican Senator John McCain on Wednesday sought to sow doubt about Democratic rival Senator Barack Obama’s background and character.
Obama, meanwhile, accused the McCain campaign of trying to “score cheap political points.”
Both candidates tried to play into voters’ worries about the other with a mere four weeks to go before election day. McCain is perceived as being weak on the economy and Obama continued a line of attack against the veteran senator for saying recently that the fundamentals of the US economy were strong.
PHOTO: AP
McCain and his running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, challenged Obama’s campaign claims, stressed his lack of experience and said his ideas were dangerous.
“We’ve all heard what he’s said. But it’s less clear what he’s done, or what he will do,” McCain told supporters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
McCain’s remarks about Obama were interrupted with shouts of “socialist,” “terrorist” and “liar.”
Palin said there were too many questions about Obama’s past: “John McCain didn’t just come out of nowhere. The American people know John McCain.”
And for the second time in three days, a speaker at a Republican rally invoked Obama’s middle name, Hussein, in an attempt to feed lingering fears about the Democrat’s background.
The return to heavily negative campaigning by the Republican ticket came as McCain, behind in the polls, gained no ground following Tuesday night’s debate with Obama.
With time running out and US and global financial institutions battered as badly as at any time in nearly eight decades, US voters appeared increasingly disinclined to put a Republican back in the White House, regardless of concerns about whether Obama, a first-term senator, has enough experience.
The Democrat leads in key states and the most recent Gallup Poll daily tracking survey showed Obama expanding his lead over McCain to 11 percentage points.
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