Obama ad continues McBush refrain

by Frank James

By many accounts, one of Sen. John McCain's best moments in last night's debate with Sen. Barack Obama was the one in which he said, responded to Sen. Barack Obama's use of the McBush argument:

Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.

As an aside, one side-benefit to McCain of that line was it likely made a lot of people think, "Hmmm, what was Obama doing four years ago? That's right, he was a state senator running to be a U.S. senator."

Anyway, back on point. The Obama campaign has a new ad that attempts to neutralize McCain's pushback and keep the allegedly conjoined twins Bush and McCain.from being separated.

The ad, which uses part of McCain's aforementioned line last night, then has the announcer intone: "But you did vote with Bush 90 percent of the time," including for "tax cuts for the wealthy" with the announcer repeating the phrase "same as Bush" as pictures of McCain "palling around" as some might say, with Bush are shown on screen.

The ad underscores one of the most striking contradictions of McCain's campaign: to win over conservatives who have for years deeply distrusted him, he embraced Bush, literally and figuratively.

But Bush is so unpopular with voters beyond the Republican base McCain has also had to also show he's at times bucked Bush. That may make him more appealing to independent and moderate voters but it just renews the old suspicions about him among conservatives.

It's a nearly impossible position to be in. But that's where McCain finds himself less than three weeks before Election Day. And the Obama camp obviously intends to keep him uncomfortable on this point until then.