by James Oliphant
It's official: John McCain has become Negative Man.
The latest round of comprehensive polling from ABC News suggests that the senator's fusillade of attacks on Barack Obama, launched with a large assist from running mate Sarah Palin, have damaged his campaign and his stature in the eyes of voters. Almost 60 percent of voters surveyed by ABC said McCain is more interested in tearing down Obama than offering any ideas of his own.
Reports ABC:
While McCain's image as the more negative of the two is not new, it's sharpened considerably, coinciding with his campaign's more pointed criticisms of Obama in the last few weeks, including Sarah Palin's accusation that Obama's been "palling around with terrorists."
Registered voters by a 24-point margin, 59-35 percent, now say McCain is more focused on attacking his opponent rather than addressing the issues. That's grown from a roughly even 48-45 percent split on this question in late August.
There's far less criticism of the tone of Obama's campaign: Registered voters by 68-26 percent say he's mainly addressing the issues, not attacking his opponent, a slightly more positive rating than in August.
Perhaps this is more of a problem than usual because Americans face enough economic bad news in their own lives right now and they last thing they want is to turn on the television and hear more of it. And it's possible that McCain's campaign has come to a similar conclusion if McCain's attempt to rachet down the rhetoric over the weekend was any indication.
There may be a new strategy in play: Promote fears of a Democratic takeover of government. In a speech today in Virginia, McCain will tie Obama to the Democratic-led Congress.
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http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/10/bad_news_for_mccains_negative.html
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