John McCain campaign suspends aide over Barack Hussein Obama video

[eb22]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-mccain-aide-obama-webmar21,1,4522334.story

McCain suspends aide over Obama video
By Matt Stearns | McClatchy Newspapers
5:46 PM CDT, March 20, 2008

  WASHINGTON — The campaign of Sen. John McCain suspended an aide Thursday for distributing a YouTube video linking Sen. Barack Obama with his longtime pastor, whose history of intemperate remarks has roiled the presidential campaign in recent days.

The aide, Soren Dayton, used a personal account on Twitter.com to send a link to the two-and-a-half-minute video. The video intersperses Obama speeches and interviews with selected inflammatory snippets of sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. McCain has said publicly that he wants to run a civil campaign.

Dayton worked in the campaign's political shop. He previously worked as an aide to Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., and is a 1999 graduate of the University of Chicago, according to his profile on LinkedIn.com, an online networking site.




"We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run, and this staffer acted in violation of our policy," said Jill Hazelbaker, a McCain spokeswoman. "He has been reprimanded by campaign leadership and suspended from the campaign."

Dayton is unlikely to rejoin the McCain campaign in the same role, aides said.

Obama has cited Wright, who recently retired as minister of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, as an inspirational figure. Obama has attended his church for nearly 20 years. But Wright also subscribes to a theology of black liberation that has led him to make remarks that could hurt Obama politically, such as saying that the U.S. bears some responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks and speaking of the "U.S. of KKK-A."

The sensitive matter of race in America was on display elsewhere in the presidential campaign Thursday when an Obama surrogate appeared to dismiss as "victims" previous black leaders in history.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who's appeared in a national television ad for the Illinois senator, was quoted by The Kansas City Star as saying of Obama: "He, for the first time, I think, as a black leader in America, has come to the American people not as a victim, but rather as a leader."

McCaskill spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh said McCaskill misspoke and "is sorry it came out wrong. In her enthusiasm to applaud  Barack Obama, it appeared that she was trying to diminish other black leaders. That was not her intention."

"Obama has said repeatedly he has deep and abiding respect for the many leaders who came before him and upon whose shoulders he stands," said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.



...


     Earth to John McCain:    This isn't the way to win an election.    < sigh >

[cjd]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-mccain-aide-obama-webmar21,1,4522334.story

McCain suspends aide over Obama video
By Matt Stearns | McClatchy Newspapers
5:46 PM CDT, March 20, 2008

  WASHINGTON — The campaign of Sen. John McCain suspended an aide Thursday for distributing a YouTube video linking Sen. Barack Obama with his longtime pastor, whose history of intemperate remarks has roiled the presidential campaign in recent days.

The aide, Soren Dayton, used a personal account on Twitter.com to send a link to the two-and-a-half-minute video. The video intersperses Obama speeches and interviews with selected inflammatory snippets of sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. McCain has said publicly that he wants to run a civil campaign.

Dayton worked in the campaign's political shop. He previously worked as an aide to Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., and is a 1999 graduate of the University of Chicago, according to his profile on LinkedIn.com, an online networking site.




"We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run, and this staffer acted in violation of our policy," said Jill Hazelbaker, a McCain spokeswoman. "He has been reprimanded by campaign leadership and suspended from the campaign."

Dayton is unlikely to rejoin the McCain campaign in the same role, aides said.

Obama has cited Wright, who recently retired as minister of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, as an inspirational figure. Obama has attended his church for nearly 20 years. But Wright also subscribes to a theology of black liberation that has led him to make remarks that could hurt Obama politically, such as saying that the U.S. bears some responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks and speaking of the "U.S. of KKK-A."

The sensitive matter of race in America was on display elsewhere in the presidential campaign Thursday when an Obama surrogate appeared to dismiss as "victims" previous black leaders in history.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., who's appeared in a national television ad for the Illinois senator, was quoted by The Kansas City Star as saying of Obama: "He, for the first time, I think, as a black leader in America, has come to the American people not as a victim, but rather as a leader."

McCaskill spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh said McCaskill misspoke and "is sorry it came out wrong. In her enthusiasm to applaud  Barack Obama, it appeared that she was trying to diminish other black leaders. That was not her intention."

"Obama has said repeatedly he has deep and abiding respect for the many leaders who came before him and upon whose shoulders he stands," said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.



...


     Earth to John McCain:    This isn't the way to win an election.    < sigh >

No it's not. If McCain thinks he is going to win by being an upstanding guy he had better get ready for defeat. He needs about a hundred more people like the guy he suspended. 

[newman]

Being 'nice & civil' in politics is about as smart as Israel's 'purity of arms' nonsense.

[jakennc]

By the election, McCain's campaign "rules" will for forbid all that work for him or support him from even speaking Barack Obama's name.  Everyone is already forbidden from using his middle name...While we have no problem people calling George Bush, Just "W".  But I believe that McCain who can only show contempt for those who actually Republicans, will cease to use Obama's name because well, let's face it, Barack Obama is such an ethnic name and by using it, it implies that we are trying to show that he is not like us, Bill's, Bob's and Joe's.  Maybe he will just call him the Honorable Democratic Nominee, or The One, the Only, THE Chosen one!.