Obama got a boost from the former secretary of state's endorsement while McCain was forced to respond. Photo: AP
By AMIE PARNES & CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 10/19/08 7:57 PM EDT
TOLEDO, Ohio — Barack Obama found out about Colin Powell's endorsement in the same way as the rest of America: He tuned in to "Meet the Press."
“We didn’t have any conversations with him," chief strategist David Axelrod said Sunday, describing Obama as "thrilled" after watching the endorsement from his hotel room in Dunn, N.C. "It was purely Powell, on his own timetable and his own initiative."
Obama, said Axelrod, views Powell as "a singular presence in American life. … For people who are still deciding, I think he laid out a case that will be meaningful to them. Independents, disaffected Republicans — there are more and more of those.”
The role Powell might take in the next two weeks is unclear, Axelrod said. "We’d love to have him out of the campaign trail, we would love to have him on TV, but if he does not one more thing, he will have done us a great service.”
The endorsement goes a ways toward insulating Obama from accusations that he's a secret socialist, Muslim or both. The $150 million his campaign brought in last month should help, too — his campaign has now raised $600 million, more than the entire field collected in the 2000 presidential election.
Obama's good news, of course, was anything but for McCain, who spent Sunday answering pointed questions on the party-crossing endorsement of his longtime friend, his choice of running mate and his campaign's continued use of robocalls, which he denounced in 2000 as "hate calls" — and which two GOP senators have objected to his using.
Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," McCain told host Chris Wallace that Powell’s endorsement “doesn’t come as a surprise,” adding that "I respect and continue to respect and admire Secretary Powell."
In the interview, McCain was also forced to defend himself from the charge of hypocrisy for waves of negative robocalls. In 2000, when McCain was the target of such calls during the GOP primary in South Carolina, he referred to them as "hate calls," Wallace reminded him.
“They were,” McCain said of the 2000 calls, but he said that his campaign's calls this year "are legitimate and truthful and they are far different than the phone calls that were made about my family … this is dramatically different.” He deemed his calls, which key in on the relationship between 1960s radical William Ayers and Obama “totally accurate … and there is no comparison between [them] and the things that were done and said in South Carolina.”
He added that he would not stop the robocalls despite requests from GOP Sens. Norm Coleman of Minnesota and Susan Collins of Maine urging him to discontinue them.
Also in that interview, and later on a tele-town hall with Jewish leaders, McCain defended his running mate, Sarah Palin, whom Powell singled out for criticism and whose numbers have been plummeting in recent polling. McCain, though, told Wallace that he “could not be more pleased” with his selection.
“She has excited and energized our base,” he said. “She is a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda for America. … She’s a reformer. She’s a conservative. She’s the best thing that could have happened to my campaign and to America. And when I see the enthusiasm and I see the passion that she has aroused, I am so happy.”
Later that morning while on the tele-town hall call, he likened Palin to former President Bill Clinton, whose new status, along with his wife, as a Republican folk hero has revivified the old saw about strange bedfellows.
“I remember we Republicans knew of this inexperienced governor of a small state in the South, Arkansas, with no real background,” McCain said. “He didn’t know how to take on these issues. He’s just governor of a small state, and he’ll never beat George Bush Sr. What the heck? And guess what? We had eight years of President Bill Clinton.
“Now whether that was a good idea or a bad idea, the people spoke and I’ll match Sarah Palin’s experience up against anybody’s,” McCain went on. “And by the way, I happen to have a lot of respect for President Bill Clinton. But the point is she knows how to lead, and she has those intangible qualities. Right now Americans need inspiration and she’s given it to them.”
He also brought up Ayers, whom he tied to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), a community activist group that McCain's campaign has accused of perpetuating "massive voter fraud." McCain said in the interview that when Obama and Ayers "served on a board together, that board gave $230,000 to ACORN. So we need to know more about it. The American people need to know and they need to know about those relationships including the ACORN relationship which the Obama campaign in the primary gave $830,000 to ACORN and the listing was that they gave the money for ‘lighting and site selection.’ Must have been great lights and a great site."
Despite a morning of good news for Obama, he experienced what pool reports described as “some powerful and at times ugly” interaction of the sort that appears to have alienated Colin Powell from the Republican Party during a visit to Cape Fear BBQ and Chicken in Fayetteville, N.C., a traditionally Republican area.
Some applauded as Obama entered the diner, but Diane Fanning, 54, began yelling “Socialist, socialist, socialist — get out of here!, ” a pool report said.
Fanning said she had heard Powell endorsed Obama, calling him “a RINO, R-I-N-O, Republican In Name Only.”
"I still think he's a closet Muslim," Fanning said of Obama.
At rallies in Westerville and Toledo on Sunday, McCain continued to use the same stump speech he has delivered for much of the week, bringing up Joe the plumber to accuse Obama of a socialist agenda, and telling supporters he would continue to fight, even though he said he is 6 points down in the polls and the media have written off his campaign. Obama, he said, is "measuring the drapes" at the White House.
The McCain campaign would not estimate how large the crowds were at the events on Sunday but both venues had room to spare.
“They forgot to let you decide," he told the crowd in Westerville. "I love being the underdog. We’ve got ‘em just where we want em.”
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