WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican John McCain has bet his White House fortunes on a blitz meant to scare voters from Democratic rival Barack Obama -- a time-honored tactic with long odds of success this year, experts warned Monday.
"Most people see it as what it is: Desperation from a failing campaign that sees the race slipping from them," Scott McClellan, former press secretary to US President George W. Bush, told AFP by telephone.
McCain aides have said it hopes to shift the debate away from the US economic crisis that exploded in mid-September, helping Obama build a steady lead in decisive states 28 days before the November 4 election.
So while the Republican candidate accuses his rival of being idle as the crisis built, his campaign runs blistering television ads that quote Obama out of context, in a bid to show he does not support US troops in combat.
The headline-grabbing attacks also include efforts by McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin , to exploit Obama's loose ties to William Ayers, a bomb-throwing 1960s radical once officially branded a terrorist.
Obama "is not a man who sees America as you and I do -- as the greatest force for good in the world," McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, told supporters at a rally in the key battleground state of Florida.
"This is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who targeted his own country," Palin said.
"McCain's campaign needs to change the subject from the economy. McCain's poll numbers have been falling faster than the stock market," said Eric Davis, a political scientist at Middlebury College in Vermont.
But while "character assassination is as American as apple pie and George Washington," according to presidential historian Stephen Hess, "McCain's problem is he lacks real ammunition."
Hess, based at the non-partisan Brookings Institution in Washington, noted that Obama was not even 10 years old when Ayers waged his extremist campaign against the Vietnam War, adding: "It's pretty thin gruel."
The attacks do little to comfort US voters worried about job losses, soaring gasoline costs, and other hardships, Hess said, stressing: "People vote on the fundamentals, and the fundamentals here are very clear."
While the McCain camp may energize its base supporters and drive a sliver of the US public away from Obama, exploiting the Democrat's ties to controversial figures "won't work" and could even backfire, cautioned Davis.
"The risk for McCain is that going negative in a very personal way backfires on him, and helps feed the narrative that the Obama campaign is now pushing, that McCain is a cranky old man who raves erratically," said Davis.
Obama's campaign has already struck back, releasing an advertisement branding McCain, 72, as "erratic."
Davis noted that there were few undecided voters at this point, most of them focused on the sour economy, making them potentially more receptive to McCain's attacks -- but only if those attacks are policy-based.
"It's very hard for him (McCain) to win, but I wouldn't write him off entirely," said Davis. "I would tell McCain: Hope the economic numbers stop declining and start attacking Obama on policy."
But "that's not the ground they want to fight on. They have always said they wanted this race to be about leadership and character versus the issues, about personality versus policy," said McClellan.
"That's been changed by events outside of their control -- the economic crisis. McCain needs a game-changer, but it's not a game-changer that he can force, it just has to come to help him," said McClellan.
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