McCain Camp: Obama Is Playing Race Card

From an outraged Reuters:

McCain camp accuses Obama of playing race card

By Steve Holland

RACINE, Wisconsin (Reuters) – Republican White House hopeful John McCain’s campaign accused Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday of playing racial politics in some of the most biting back-and-forth of the presidential campaign.

The negative twist in the campaign for the November 4 election was prompted by a McCain television advertisement on Wednesday that called Obama a celebrity akin to star-crossed U.S. personalities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

In response, Obama said McCain was trying to scare voters away from him by pointing out he has “a funny name, and he doesn’t look like all the presidents on the dollar bills and the five dollar bills.” …

“Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It’s divisive, negative, shameful and wrong,” McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said in a written statement.

Obama fired back during a town hall meeting in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, saying the attacks did not help voters deal with the array of problems they face.

“You’d think we’d be having a serious debate but so far all we’ve been hearing about is Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. I do have to ask my opponent: Is that the best you can come up with?” Obama said.

He said McCain had pledged to run an honorable campaign but had fallen back into “these negative ads, these negative attacks.”

But McCain said “we’re proud of that commercial” in speaking to a friendly audience at a town hall meeting in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

“I admire his campaign, but what we are talking about here is substance and not style. And what we’re talking about is who has an agenda for the future of America. Campaigns are tough, but I am proud of the campaign that we have run,” McCain said…

The McCain side defended the ad, which generated much publicity, and said the Obama camp was over-reacting.

“It celebrates the excitement that he has generated, that is certainly more akin to the excitement that a celebrity generates than a normal politician,” McCain senior adviser Nicolle Wallace said on MSNBC.

But Obama adviser Robert Gibbs said on NBC’s “Today” show that McCain is “running an increasingly dishonorable campaign.”

“The McCain campaign has very clearly decided that the only way to win this election is to become very personal and very negative. We believe that people will see that as nothing more than the same old politics and the same old policies of the last eight years,” he said…

Speaking of stepping on your message — as the McCain is so wont to do.

To review, the McCain camp runs a fairly effective and accurate ad which suggests that Mr. Obama is famous for being famous.

And, like Pavlov’s dog, Obama calls that racist.

Then McCain rightly points out that (once again) Obama is playing the race card. But he can’t resist immediately adding how much he admires the Obama campaign.

(Why? For their determined avoidance of the issues? For calling any criticism ‘racism’?)

Then to top it all off, a McCain advisor has to spin their “celebrity” ad as a “celebration” of the excitement that Obama is generating.

What is wrong with these people?