LOL Angry old man just won't give it up.
Eric Kleefeld | August 12, 2010, 8:53AM
John McCain just can't quit Obama.
A fun pattern has emerged from the Arizona Republican's Senate campaign, as he's fought through a heated Republican primary challenge from former Rep. J.D. Hayworth. While McCain has certainly been dishing out the attacks on Hayworth, he's also been rallying the Republican base by training his fire on another nemesis: President Barack Obama, the man who defeated him in the 2008 presidential election.
In many ways this makes sense. Obama is both a cause of and target for the conservative base's ire, and anything that McCain can do to rally them on that basis should do him well. And as Larry Sabato once explained to us, McCain can be much more credible by being "Mr. Anti-Obama" than he can by being "Mr. Anti-Immigration" -- though he has also tacked right on border security -- and by pitching himself to Republican voters as the man most dedicated to foiling Obama's plans for the country.
So let's take a look at the anti-Obama theme that has run through McCain's campaign.
•Early on in January, McCain ran a radio ad in which he said: "President Obama is leading an extreme left-wing crusade to bankrupt America. I stand in his way every day. If I get a bruise or two knocking some sense into heads in Washington, so be it. I'll keep fighting for jobs and economic growth for Arizona, as long as I'm in the Senate."
•The '08 campaign was dredged up again during the White House's health care summit in February. As McCain insisted that the American people wanted Congress to "go back to the beginning" on health care legislation, Obama told him: "We're not campaigning anymore. The election is over."
McCain laughed uncomfortably: "I'm reminded of that every day."
More here:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/obama-on-his-mind-mccain-still-campaigning-against-08-rival.php