Obama On McCain’s Grade School Campaign

[Lt_Ripley]

August 1st, 2008 7:13 PM Eastern

Obama On McCain’s Grade School Campaign

by Aaron Bruns

ORLANDO, Fla — Barack Obama took his fight with John McCain back to elementary school, accusing his rival campaign of acting like a bunch of 5th graders calling names.

Speaking to volunteers at an Orlando phone bank, Obama ribbed McCain for taking the campaign into the gutter. “When we started this campaign, we were hoping for a more elevated debate. I mean, imagine — at a time when we face more challenges than at any time in our lifetime, these guys are running ads with Paris and Britney,” he said. “That’s frivolous. It’s desperate.”

Obama said the campaign tactics are a sign of a lack of imagination over at Team McCain. “It’s a sign that they don’t have anything to offer to the American people so they’re just going to try to call folks names like you did in 5th grade,” he said. “You remember that, back in 5th grade? You know, people’d be calling each other names and getting into these petty fights. We don’t have time for that.”

One might think that the Illinois Senator, who has two grade-school aged children himself, wouldn’t want to bring the freshness of youth to the 72-year old McCain, whose age is seen as a liability — although Obama did tell the crowd that McCain “wants to do the same old thing.” Never a bad idea to get the word “old” in a McCain riff.

Otherwise, it was a lovefest between Obama and his supporters, who he thanked for standing by him in good tiems and bad — and for helping him with those nasty internet rumors.

“18 months ago when I announced, nobody gave us a shot. We didn’t have the establishment in Washington behind us. We didn’t have all the big lobbyists and PACs and money behind us,” he said. “But what we had, that they didn’t understand, was the people. The spirit of ordinary Americans who wanted to bring about change. That’s always been our secret weapon. That’s always been the magic ingredient in this campaign — you.”

“Through victories and defeats, you guys have stuck with us and you’ve been there. And you’ve made phone calls and you’ve talked to friends and you’ve had to defend, you know, my positions, and explain to people, you know, those emails are wrong,” said Obama. “There’s just stuff you’ve had to do because you understand what’s at stake.”

Later tonight, Obama attends a fundraiser with his Senior Senator, Dick Durbin — who was at the organizing event along with former Clinton backer, Senator Bill Nelson.

“Not only is he one of the best Senators we have, nicest man you ever want to meet but the guy was an astronaut. That is cool,” Obama said of Nelson. Being a Senator is OK. But being an astronaut, tha’ts serious stuff'

http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/

[__Kratos__]

Being popular doesn't mean you're ready to lead... That's the point.

[InHuman]

Being popular doesn't mean you're ready to lead... That's the point.

Yup.

But calling him a celeb and trying to discredit him like that makes it seem as tho someone is lashing out because he isn't as popular (with the youth and pop and whatnot)...

[ninjadude]

Being popular doesn't mean you're ready to lead... That's the point.

Who said it was? It does show that in the "popular" judgement, he could be a good future leader. Is there some misguided reason you think Obama is not "ready" to lead? Whatever that means. I'd be happy to point out otherwise.