Obama campaigns for Carter's second term

Edward Luce:

...

Mr McCain has got into the habit of describing his likely Democratic opponent as a man of eloquent but empty words. He has also borrowed Mrs Clinton’s tendency to question Mr Obama’s qualifications to be commander-in-chief. He even recently suggested that Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian group, is rooting for Mr Obama to become president.

Mr Obama, meanwhile, often compliments Mr McCain’s “half a century of honourable service” – in a sly reference to his opponent’s advanced years. In his victory speech on Tuesday night after his win in the North Carolina primary – which almost certainly put the prize beyond Hillary Clinton’s reach – Mr Obama trained almost all of his attacks on the 71-year-old Mr McCain.

“John McCain’s plans for the future are nothing more than the failed policies of the past,” he said. “We all agree that at this defining moment in history ... we cannot afford to give John McCain the chance to serve out George Bush’s third term.”

...

McCain is espousing ideas he believes in and Obama is trying to discredit them by associating them with President Bush. This is dangerous ground for Obama when he breaks out of the democrat echo chamber. First the economy he has spent so much time denigrating was the one in which he went from having his credit cards rejected to becoming a multimillionaire.

Obama has shown a profound ignorance of counterinsurgency warfare and the facts on the ground in Iraq that will also show up when he breaks out of the Democrat echo chamber.

But, if he claims that McCain is running for George Bush's third term, then he is susceptible to the charge he is running for Jimmy Carter's second term with his goofy foreign policy and his ridiculous idea of raising taxes.