After weeks of relentless attacks on Obama character, judgment, and patriotism, McCain to finally "take off the gloves"

Those naive souls who thought the Karl Rove-trained attack dogs now running the once-floundering, now surging McCain campaign had already forsaken clean campaigning with weeks of relentless attacks on opponent Barack Obama's character, judgment, and patriotism may be forgiven in the light of campaign operatives signaling that the gloves will only now be coming off in the wake of the Obama campaign's latest ad.

What is so shocking and hurtful in the Obama advert?

McCain's own words.

Always a problem when those words paint the candidate as a universe away from the voters he's trying to pass himself off as one of.

The problem for the McCain campaign is that, in a recent interview with the Politico blog, when asked how many houses he owned, McCain allowed as he didn't know -- and that he'd have to have his staff get back with the answer.

The answer, sort of, was forthcoming. At least four, said the campaign.

But a watchdog group did a little digging and found out, no -- it's at least seven.

Now, it's no secret that McCain grew up rich, and that in his second marriage, he married up: the woman he began dating before he persuaded his first wife to grant him a divorce being the heiress to a fortune now valued at around 100 million dollars. Not what it used to be, maybe, but still a good chunk of change.

But, it's safe to say, most regular ol' Americans probably know how about many houses they own at any given time. I'm thinkin'.


The Rovian barrage of highly negative ads from the former Rove lieutenants brought in to reinvigorate the McCain campaign clearly seemed to be working and old line Democratic operatives (notable among them tough-talking, tougher-campaigning southern strategist James Carville) had been railing at the Obama campaign to take up the gantlet and launch a negative campaign of their own.

Naturally, McCain's befuddlement as to how many houses he owned -- coming on the heels of his recent jaw-dropper when he was asked to define the income threshold at which one could be considered rich was too much for the Obama campaign to pass up and they jumped in with ads highlighting McCain's own quotes.

Which infuriated the McCain campaign, prompting new threats to "take off the gloves"...

CBS's Dean Reynolds comments in his CBS News blog:

But the question must be asked, what did Obama's campaign do that would require a doffing off of the gloves? Did he not simply recycle McCain's own words. And, of course, that is the dilemma for McCain's camp. Just as their man was feeling the wind at his back and basking in some good polls comes word of his seven homes.

At least seven. The McCain campaign cried foul, pointing out that Obama earned $4 million last year, which doesn't exactly make him a man of the people. But by McCain's own definition, it doesn't make Obama rich either.

Remember this from last weekend's conference with Rev. Rick Warren at the Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.?

"Define rich," Warren said to McCain.

"How about $5 million?" McCain responded. The audience laughed. But nobody at the McCain campaign is laughing now.

No doubt the Obama campaign would prefer it noted that his four million dollar income last year was the result of sales of his best selling book -- and that the purchase price of Obama's own "million dollar home" near Chicago would barely buy into a middle class neighborhood in many pockets of the hot real estate market of several years ago.