Time To Take Off The Gloves

If Sen. John McCain has any real hope of winning next Tuesday's presidential election, it's more than high time he took off the kid gloves. It's too late for him to play the gentleman, ruling certain issues "off limits." Nothing is off limits in a high-stakes political campaign.
Everything's in play: including a fire-breathing pastor, a nagging but unrepentant domestic terrorist and a convicted big-city slumlord among Barack Obama's past associates. They give us the right - and opportunity - to question Obama's judgment, even today.
Bring on the damaging video clips. Many voters are turned off by nasty political ads. But traditional arguments aren't catching on, either. Everybody's worried about the current state of the domestic economy; sure. And both presidential candidates have presented vague platforms to make it all better.
We wouldn't exactly be reinventing the wheel by playing rough-and-tough politics. FDR campaigned for reelection on a slogan of "Roosevelt or Ruin;" LBJ produced the anti-nuke daisy commercial to sway voters, and the first George Bush won the White House on convicted rapist Willie Horton scare tactics. Some 18th and 19th century politicians even dueled over lesser issues.
By far the most provocative example of campaign commercial mud-slinging has already come and gone. The Democrats briefly ran a TV ad focusing on McCain's earlier bouts of skin cancer.
Long gone, laments my childhood playmate who's now the New York Times doctor-medical writer, are the days when "there was a kind of gentlemen's agreement between public officials and the news media that permitted serious health conditions to be played down or kept secret." We were largely ignorant of FDR's crippling polio handicap and JFK's struggle with a hormone disorder.
Today, while McCain releases his 1,200pages of medical records, Obama can get away with a single-page undated letter from his doctor saying merely that he's fit for fight. As Fox News Channel might ask, "Is that fair and balanced?"
We're overlooking Obama's solution to everything, from education to health care: higher taxes (we'd like to know how high!) and a redistribution of income that smacks of out-and-out socialism.
What the Republican Party should do (if not McCain himself) is to air TV commercials featuring Pastor Jeremiah Wright damning America, Weatherman Bill Ayers, megaphone in hand, leading an anti-American demonstration and condemned Chicago housing projects once run by Obama's (hopefully) former friend, the slumlord.
In another made-for-TV episode, what's the real relationship between Obama and ACORN - an acronym for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform, a taxpayer-funded militant group of rabble-rousers that may be engaged in voter fraud?
While they're at it, the Republicans should dig out a few year-old film clips of Obama running mate "Joe the Biden" (as opposed to "Joe the Plumber") campaigning for the Democratic nomination by arguing, ironically, that Barack is not ready for the presidency.
Where is Joe the Plumber, by the way? He's now a struggling household name; he should be talking up the interests of the small business owners Obama (Mr. 95 Percent) would rather tax out of existence.
An Internet Web site already broadcasts "Joe the Plumber Blues." Joe the Plumber T-shirts were hugely popular within days of TV's remote trucks first camping outside the fix-it man's Ohio house. We'll have to hang by our thumbs until Joe negotiates a TV reality show or patents Joe's plumber's crack.
Furthermore, the velvet-voiced Obama should be forced to explain where he'd get all the money to finance the many sympathetic-sounding tax credits he's promised - on savings, college tuitions, home mortgages, child care, etc. Higher taxes, of course. Although they may be disguised from time to time as "fees" or "charges."
Speaking of promises, what about ones Obama has already broken, big-time? He initially agreed to town hall debate forums with McCain. We got three boring TV debates, instead. Obama pledged to use federal financing for his campaign. He reneged and now has banked three times as much campaign cash as McCain.
As matters stand, a vote for an inexperienced Obama would be much like a Seminole casino crap shoot. We really couldn't be sure what we'd be getting. He certainly hasn't left much of a track record; just questions.