Palin Takes `Gloves Off,'' Filling Attack-Dog Role (Update2)

By Nicholas Johnston

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Sarah Palin returned to the campaign trail with her ``gloves off,'' taking on the vice presidential candidate's traditional role of attack dog and lashing out at Barack Obama.

At rallies and fundraisers over the past three days she criticized Illinois Senator Obama personally, particularly his association with Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground radical group, whom she described as a ``domestic terrorist.'' The Democratic presidential nominee ``is not a man who sees America as you see it,'' she said at an Oct. 4 campaign rally in Carson, California.

Her supporters said they liked the new tone. ``It's about time the pit bull got loose,'' said Ken Gow, a 47-year-old police officer who was among the more than 10,000 people at the Carson rally.

The new attack mode may be a political necessity for a ticket that has fallen behind with voters. Republican presidential nominee John McCain trails in national polls by Gallup and Rasmussen by numbers that are outside the margin of error. Obama has also opened an advantage in important battleground states such as Ohio, where he has a 7-point advantage, according to a poll by the Columbus Dispatch conducted Sept. 25-Oct. 3.

`More Aggressively'

Palin alluded to the need for a more combative posture. ``There does come a time when you have to take the gloves off and that time is right now,'' Palin said at fundraiser in Costa Mesa, California. She told donors to ``get ready'' for the campaign to ``tell Americans more and more aggressively'' about the choices in the election.

She again criticized Obama at a rally this morning in Clearwater, Florida, saying he was ``not truthful'' about his relationship with Ayers.

The Obama campaign began its own line of attack this weekend by highlighting McCain's involvement in the ``Keating Five'' savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s. A new Web site, keatingeconomics.com, features a 30-second Web advertisement and will also host a 13-minute documentary called ``Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis,'' produced by the campaign.

Debate

Palin, the governor of Alaska, is on the offensive after several days off the trail as she prepared for last week's debate against the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, and a series of television interviews that she herself has said were ``not too successful.''

In the interviews, with Katie Couric of CBS News, Palin, 44, had trouble naming Supreme Court decisions she opposed aside from Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision which legalized abortion nationwide, and couldn't name any newspaper or magazine she relies on to stay informed.

Ironically, Palin's charges about Obama's link to Ayers -- whose group carried out bombings of government buildings in the early 1970s -- was based on an article this weekend in the New York Times, a paper the campaign of Republican presidential candidate John McCain has said shows a ``willful disregard for the truth.''

`Palling Around'

At a fundraiser in Englewood, Colorado, Palin called Ayers ``one of Barack's earliest supporters,'' and said Obama ``sees America as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.''

Obama, 47, once served on the board of a Chicago charity with Ayers and has denounced the bombings. The Times' report said ``the two men do not appear to have been close'' and that there is ``little public evidence'' of relationship since 2002.

Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said Palin's comments ``while offensive, are not surprising.'' The McCain campaign, he said, has gone on the attack ``in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation's economic ills.''

Palin's post-debate schedule will include both solo appearances and events with McCain, campaign manager Rick Davis said in an interview. She will focus on ``targeted states'' in the Midwest and Southwest, where ``she will really concentrate on galvanizing the party,'' Davis said.

Even though, unlike Obama, they have chosen to accept $84.1 million in taxpayer financing for the campaign, Palin and McCain have been raising millions for state parties and the Republican National Committee.

Fundraising

Palin held five fundraisers in the three days following the Oct. 2 debate, taking in money in California, Texas and Colorado. The campaign declined to say how much she raised, though Paul Folino, an organizer of an event in Costa Mesa, California, said the campaign brought in $2 million from about 1,200 people there.

Yesterday, she wrapped up a weekend of campaigning with a fundraiser outside San Francisco and a rally in Omaha, Nebraska, a state where McCain's lead over Obama is about 20 percentage points in most recent polls.

At the rally in Carson, supporters cheered the new attack lines and shouted down pro-Obama protesters in the crowd. As one Obama supporter was led out of the stadium, Palin mentioned her 19-year-old son Track, who is serving in the Army.

``My son is over in Iraq right now fighting for the freedoms that that person is exercising,'' she said as the crowd roared.

``I hope she hits him even harder,'' said Scott Taylor, 51, a building inspector from Glendora. ``The harder the better.''

Saturday Night Live

While the McCain campaign is calling Palin's performance in the debate a success that proves her ability to be an effective running mate, polls taken by news organizations such as CNN immediately after suggested more viewers regarded Biden as the winner. Palin continues to inspire satire on late-night television.

Impersonating the Republican candidate in a skit on Saturday Night Live this weekend, comedian Tina Fey lampooned her responses to a question about how a McCain administration would handle the financial crisis gripping the U.S.

``We're gonna take every aspect of this crisis and look at it, and then we're gonna ask ourselves what would a maverick do in this situation and then you know we'll do that,'' Fey, as Palin, said.

In Florida today, Palin made light of the skits, telling the crowd that her one of her roles is ``to keep Tina Fey in business.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Nicholas Johnston in Carson, California, at njohnston3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 6, 2008 13:36 EDT

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