McCain fails to make the case against NC ad

Washington Times:

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. was supposed to be a problem for Democrats, but Sen. John McCain has now made it his own dilemma by clashing with Republicans who say Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor is fair game.

The spat between the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and a state Republican Party branch has also called into question the senator's status as the de facto leader of his party.

Mr. McCain has grown increasingly infuriated by the North Carolina Republican Party's decision to run a television ad next week in advance of the state's May 6 primary calling Mr. Obama "too extreme" because of his connection to Mr. Wright. The ad includes a clip of one of Mr. Wright's sermons in which he calls on God to condemn America.

Yesterday, after his campaign spent two days trying to persuade the state party's chairman to cancel the ad, Mr. McCain's anger boiled over.

"The Republican Party of the state of North Carolina is dead wrong," he said on CBS' "The Early Show." "I'll do everything in my power to make sure not only they stop it, but that kind of leadership is rejected."

He railed about the decision again on NBC's "Today" program. "They're not listening to me because they're out of touch with reality and the Republican Party," he said. "This kind of campaigning is unacceptable. I have said that. It will harm the Republicans' cause."

For the past two days, the McCain campaign and Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan sought to convince the state party that it should not run the ad, which links Mr. Wright to two North Carolina Democratic gubernatorial candidates who have endorsed Mr. Obama.

"We are going to run the ad. There has never been a question in my mind," said Linda Daves, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party.

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"McCain should stay out of it," Bobby Eberle, president of GOPUSA, a Web site and e-mail newsletter to grass-roots conservatives. "Guilt by association is not only a valid campaign tactic, but it is also a necessary ingredient to getting to know a candidate, especially when the media will not dig into Obama's background."

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The ad is also about a question of judgment on Obama's part and those who endorse him. It is particularly disingenuous on the part of the Democrats to criticize this type of ad, because they have already been using guilt by association ads tying McCain and President Bush. If They can do that then North Carolina can tie candidates to Obama in a negative way.

The thing that strikes me about this controversy is that McCain and the Democrats can't really say what is wrong with the ad. They both say they don't like it, but their rationale is not convincing.