McCain camp strikes back on houses issue

With a nasty ad, John McCain's campaign tries to shift the focus on to Barack Obama -- and Tony Rezko.

Published August 22, 2008 1:27PM (EDT)

John McCain's campaign, clearly, is not happy about all this talk concerning just how many houses McCain and his wife own. (And with good reason, naturally. This is not a good subject for McCain.)

So the McCain camp is trying to shift the narrative with an ad, released Thursday afternoon, that takes the fight back to Barack Obama by bringing up Tony Rezko. Titled "Housing Problem," the spot is running in key states. And, as a colleague pointed out, the spot may be a signal of just how angry McCain and his staffers are about the hammering the presumptive Republican nominee is taking about his houses. Notice that the obligatory "I'm John McCain, and I approve this message" tag comes at the end of the ad, not the beginning? Nasty spots like this usually distance the candidate by putting that tag at the beginning; by putting it at the end, as in this case, the ad seems to come directly from McCain himself.


By Alex Koppelman

Alex Koppelman is a staff writer for Salon.

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2008 Elections Barack Obama John Mccain R-ariz.