Friendly campaigning, only not so much

POLITICAL MEMO

By Jim Rutenberg

updated 6:56 a.m. ET July 12, 2008

WASHINGTON - Senators Barack Obama and John McCain have pledged to wage respectful, dignified and honest presidential campaigns.

Yet there was Mr. Obama this week, sarcastically calling Mr. McCain’s chief economic adviser, former Senator Phil Gramm, “Dr. Phil” — a reference to the touchy-feely television psychologist Phil McGraw — for saying that recent economic woes were based on a negative national mind-set.

“He’s ‘Dr. No,’ ” Mr. McCain shot back, using his new pet name for Mr. Obama — based on a villain in the 1962 James Bond movie — because of his opposition to various proposals from Mr. McCain.

What’s a little name-calling between transcendent political figures?

Every presidential election year, the nominees of the major parties vow to run cordial campaigns only to behave otherwise when the battle finally joins.

This campaign, though, had held out more promise than most previous election cycles to be something different, with two candidates whose pledges to change “politics as usual” have been central to their political identities. Mr. Obama has regularly inveighed against “all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington”; Mr. McCain, whose bus and plane are streaked with the words “Straight Talk,” has talked about running “a respectful campaign,” what he has called “an argument among friends.”

But roughly a month into the general election campaign, the Obama and McCain campaigns are already locked in a minute-by-minute fight, trading advertisement for advertisement, sound bite for sound bite, press release for press release — and, yes, insulting name for insulting name — with rhetoric that can be as harsh and misleading as that of any previous campaign.

At play, beyond real policy differences over major issues like taxes and Iraq, is a fierce competition to win the moment in a hypercharged news environment driven not only by cable and the evening newscasts but also by the scores of Web sites that now cover politics by the minute with screaming headlines attached to the smallest developments.

The tone of the discourse seems to carry risks for two men who in part became their parties’ presumptive nominees by speaking against partisan bickering, said Matthew Dowd, a former strategist for Mr. Bush.

“The reason why each of these candidates won was for the exact opposite reason from how they’ve been acting lately,” Mr. Dowd said. “They need to say to themselves, ‘Listen, what made me special, what made it work for me, was this, and I’m going to have to have a disciplined approach that matches my rhetoric.’ ”

For their part, the campaigns blame each other for setting a combative tone that makes turning down the volume the equivalent of unilateral disarmament.

Behind the scenes are amped-up campaign war rooms that between them send dozens of attack e-mail messages to reporters on a given day. The force behind some of the harder-charging rhetoric may be no different than what prompted allies of John Quincy Adams to run searing attack pamphlets against Andrew Jackson nearly 200 years ago: It works.

“As long as it continues to work,” said Prof. William D. Harpine, the chairman of the department of communications at the University of South Carolina, Aiken, “there will be some temptation by even the most high-minded candidates to engage in unfair, negative campaigning.”

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The early talk of an unusually dignified campaign year had caused worry at places like FactCheck.org, a group devoted to highlighting false and misleading campaign statements under the auspices of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

“If the dialogue becomes too elevated, I’ll have to retire,” said Brooks Jackson, the FactCheck.org director. “So far, no danger there.”

The group has had a particularly busy couple of weeks, with Mr. McCain’s campaign and the Republican Party providing much of the fodder recently.

There was the party-sponsored television advertisement and a McCain-sponsored Web video that said Mr. Obama was opposed to “innovation” on energy policy, the development of electric cars and nuclear power. (Mr. Obama has proposed a $150 billion investment in the accelerated development of alternative energy sources, including hybrid-electric car engines, and does not oppose nuclear energy.)

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