Rezko didn't work. Ayers didn't work. Joe the Plumber doesn't seem to be working all that well. Tax and spend doesn't work. Terrorist doesn't work. What do you turn to when all of your slime just slips off the wall and doesn't stick? Well, you turn to Reverend Wright of course!
John McCain's campaign manager says he is reconsidering using Barack Obama's relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright as a campaign issue during the election's closing weeks.
In an appearance on conservative Hugh Hewitt's radio program, Davis said that circumstances had changed since John McCain initially and unilaterally took Obama's former pastor off the table. The Arizona Republican, Davis argued, had been jilted by the remarks of Rep. John Lewis, who compared recent GOP crowds to segregationist George Wallace's rallies. And, as such, the campaign was going to "rethink" what was in and out of political bounds.
Oh boo hoo! Rep. Lewis said mean things about me. Therefore everything is on the table! Or as TPM currently says on their homepage:
Why did Rep. John Lewis have to go and make the honorable John McCain start race-baiting?
McCain had held off on using Rev. Wright for several reasons. First, apparently he apparently felt like it was too obviously playing the race card. Second, once Palin got on the ticket, she kind of had her own pastor problem as well.
Of course, if he does do this, I have a feeling it won't turn out good for McCain.
First, their provocation that Rep. Lewis called "John McCain and Sarah Palin and his entire group of supporters, fifty million people strong around this country...racists" (that's Davis' quote) is so laughably easily debunked that it isn't even close.
Did Lewis go a little too far bringing George Wallace into the conversation? Probably. Is there any way one could possibly even parse his statement to mean that he was calling McCain racist? No, because if there were, you would hear the McCain campaign repeat it.
Second, it's old. We went through this ordeal for, what, a month during the spring or early summer? There isn't any new material here. It will just look like more desperation.
Third, they're right, it is race baiting, and I think people will see it as such.
Of course, I think McCain was just looking for an excuse to pull this out of the hat, if they hadn't already planned on this being their closing act since the beginning, anyway.
Stay classy, John McCain!