Barack Obama on McCain's character attacks

Barack Obama on McCain's character attacks

Tom Joyner Show, 10/06/08

transcript:
[Q] Senator this is the first [inaudible] by the McCain camp's attempt to turn the campaign away from the economy to character issues. [Inaudible] Washington Post. How do you respond to this? Your view on what they are trying to do now in this campaign?

[BO] Well, I think it is unfortunate. First of all, just the facts. Mr. Ayres is somebody who lives in Chicago, he is a professor at the University of Chicago—University of Illinois, teaches education and he engaged in these despicable acts 40 years ago when I was eight years old. I served on a board with him and so now they are trying to use this as guilt by association. And as you've said they explicitly stated what they want to do is to change the topic, because they don't want to talk about the economy and the failed policies of the last eight years. So, I think the American people deserve better. I think they deserve a last four weeks that talks about the economic crisis, about the 159 jobs that were lost 159,000 jobs that were lost just last week—last month. But if John McCain wants to have a character debate then I am happy to have that debate, because Mr. McCain's record despite him calling himself a maverick actually shows that he is continually somebody who relies on lobbyists for big oil, big corporations and that he makes decisions oftentimes based on what these lobbyists tell him to do. And that I think is going to be a lot more relevant to the American people than what somebody who is tangentially related to me did when I was eight years old.

[Q] Now your campaign is fighting back by launching this website keatingeconomics.com. Of course Charles Keating was a savings and loan guy out of Arizona. I believe that bailout—that failure cost the American people $2.3 billion. But doesn't this put you in the position of going negative, taking away your message of running a different kind of campaign?

[BO] One of the things we've done during this campaign—we don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last. Because if the American people don't get the information that is relevant about these candidates and instead in the last four weeks all they are hearing about are smears and swift boat tactics that can have an impact on the election. We have seen it before, and this election is too important to be sitting on the sidelines. If Senator McCain wants to focus on the issues then that is what we focus on. But if Senator McCain wants to have a character debate that is one that we're willing to have.

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News & Politics

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