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Obama's Right to Go Negative

Posted Aug 7, 08 2:24 PM CDT in US,  Opinion,  Politics 

(Newser) – Barack Obama is going negative on John McCain, something he never did in the primary race against Hillary Clinton. But that doesn’t mean he’s abandoning a winning strategy. The current race is worlds apart from his tête-à-tête with Clinton, Noam Scheiber writes in the New Republic. For one, it’s “easier to go negative on an old white guy.”

In the primaries, Obama had two advantages: his early opposition to the Iraq war, and his “new politics” style. “If Obama had gone negative, he would have ceded one of those two key assets,” Scheiber says. But now, Obama—a popular Democrat with popular policies—can only benefit from linking McCain to the “radioactive” George W. Bush.
Source: New Republic

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Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., listens to a question from the media aboard his campaign charter jet while in flight back to Chicago, Ill., Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. pays for his pancakes during a stop at the Copper Dome Restaurant in Saint Paul, Minn., Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks to reporters after a tour of Merillat Industries Wednesday, Aug. 6, 2008, in Jackson, Ohio.   (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., center, poses for a photo with the wait staff at a Bob Evans restaurant, Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008, in Marion, Ohio.   (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
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