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NEW YORK : The White House contenders called off a brief campaign truce Friday as Barack Obama fired the opening salvo of a sharp counter-offensive against Republican John McCain's "smears and lies."
Obama's Democratic camp accused the Arizona senator of sinking "into the gutter" after the McCain campaign aired a new ad accusing their rivals of disrespecting the Republican's female running mate, Sarah Palin.
"He was the world's biggest celebrity, but his star's fading," the McCain ad said, accusing Obama and his supporters of belittling Palin as an attractive know-nothing who lies about her record.
The independent website FactCheck.org said the McCain ad explored "new paths of deception" as Obama parried with two ads of his own and his campaign manager David Plouffe, in a lengthy memo, ripped apart the Republican case.
One of the spots in the air war, which erupted after a pause in campaigning to mark Thursday's seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks, hammered the Democrats' case that McCain is a clone of President George W. Bush.
"1982, John McCain goes to Washington. Things have changed in the last 26 years, but McCain hasn't," it narrator intoned.
"He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an email. Still doesn't understand the economy, and favors 200 billion in tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class.
"After one president who was out of touch, we just can't afford more of the same."
Obama took up the attack personally in early morning remarks via satellite to the International Association of Machinists and AerospaceWorkers.
"The very companies that shipped their jobs overseas have been rewarded with billions of dollars in tax breaks that John McCain supports and plans to continue," he said.
"So when American workers hear John McCain talking about putting country first, it's fair to ask -- which country?"
Obama allies Senator Dick Durbin and congressman Rahm Emanuel also piled on McCain, again framing the election around unpopular President George W. Bush after the campaign seemed to reel under a Palin-inspired charge.
"Who is the authentic agent of change that will reverse the policies that George Bush and Dick Cheney put in place?" said Emanuel on a conference call with reporters.
But while they hurled their counter-punches, Obama and running mate Joseph Biden also said they "send their thoughts and prayers to all those in the path of Hurricane Ike," a monster storm bearing down on Texas.
Palin has been largely sequestered from the national media since signing up to McCain's ticket, but the first portions of her debut TV network interview aired late Thursday.
In the ABC News interview, the conservative Alaska governor vowed not to "blink" in pursuit of America's "righteous" war in Iraq and insisted she was ready to step in as president if needed.
But she appeared to stumble as she was grilled on foreign policy in the high-stakes exchange with respected ABC anchor Charlie Gibson, which she also used to stake out a hawkish line towards Russia.
Palin failed to immediately recognize the "Bush doctrine," the promise of pre-emptive strikes that is the centerpiece of the current Republican administration's foreign policy.
The Alaska governor also seemed to agree that US troops should go into sovereign Pakistan to hunt down terror suspects -- a position adopted by Obama, and now reportedly by Bush, but which McCain has berated as "dangerous" and "naive."
Both Republicans, now apart with Palin back in Alaska, had no campaign rallies scheduled for Friday but were doing another round of media interviews.
Palin has transformed McCain's campaign since she was taken on ahead of the Republican convention earlier this month, drawing huge crowds and tapping the votes of white women, and helping the party ticket to lead in national polls.
But Plouffe said the McCain-Palin combine had ditched his argument that experience is what counts most in the next president, given the first-term governor's own inexperience, and was now fighting on Obama's turf of change.
"This is a debate we welcome. It is the debate America needs," Obama's campaign manager wrote, vowing to hammer issues such as job losses, health care and the Iraq war in the weeks to come before the November 4 election.
- AFP /ls
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