McCain campaign manager: This election is not about issues

Politico
Ben Smith

Barack Obama hit John McCain on Wednesday over a comment from his campaign manager that the presidential race will be decided more on personalities than on issues.

“Which probably explains why last night when they were speaking, all these speakers [at the Republican National Convention] came up, you didn’t hear a single word about the economy,” Obama said at an economic forum in New Philadelphia, Ohio. “Not once did people mention the hardships that people are going through.”

“I guess I don’t blame them,” Obama added, “because if you don’t have any issues to run on, you want it all to be about personality. If you have got George Bush’s track record and John McCain voting 90 percent of the time in agreement with George Bush, then you probably you don’t want to talk about issues either.”

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis told Washington Post editors Tuesday that issues will have an impact on undecided voters but will not be conclusive.

“This election is not about issues,” Davis said. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”

The Obama campaign challenged the remarks Tuesday, and Obama added criticism of Davis’ remarks in his stump speech Wednesday, as part of an extended riff aimed at painting McCain as out of touch.

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