Below The Beltway

It’s beginning to look like there’s a dispute growing within the McCain campaign over the increasingly negative tone of their message:

Top McCain campaign officials are grappling with how far to go with negative attacks on Sen. Barack Obama in the final weeks of what is turning into a come-from-behind effort.

Sen. John McCain waves during a town hall meeting in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Sen. John McCain has allowed a series of increasingly harsh broadsides in new campaign ads and in speeches by his wife, Cindy, and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin. But the Arizona Republican has rejected pleas from some advisers to launch attacks focusing on Sen. Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Some McCain campaign officials are becoming concerned about the hostility that attacks against Sen. Obama are whipping up among Republican supporters. During an internal conference call Thursday, campaign officials discussed how the tenor of the crowds has turned on the media and on Sen. Obama.

Someone yelled “Off with his head” at a rally Wednesday for Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin in Pennsylvania. Later that day in Ohio, a man stood outside a rally holding a sign that said “Obama, Osama.” At a rally in Jacksonville, Fla., on Tuesday, someone in the crowd wore a T-shirt depicting Sen. Obama wearing a devil mask.

On at least one topic, it’s clear that McCain himself has drawn a line that the campaign has yet to cross:

Sen. McCain vetoed proposals to attack the Illinois senator for his 20 years as a member of the church led by Rev. Wright, whose harsh comments about racism in America and other issues created problems for Sen. Obama during the Democratic primary contest. Sen. Obama publicly severed ties with Rev. Wright earlier this year.

Sen. McCain has said Rev. Wright is off limits.

That decision, and the worry that the campaign could open itself to accusations of racism, has kept Rev. Wright out of their strategy.

One McCain senior adviser said the difference between Mr. Ayers and Rev. Wright isn’t race, it’s religion. “It’s not appropriate to attack someone’s faith,” he said.

And, so far at least, we haven’t seen any of that from the campaign or its surrogates even though, as Marc Ambinder notes, there seems to be more of an argument for bringing up Jeremiah Wright than there is from bringing up Obama’s ties to William Ayers:

If there is a case for the relevancy of Ayers’s association, there is much more of a solid case about Wright’s; Wright and Obama were very close; Ayers and Obama were acquaintances. Peremptorily cutting off talk of Rev. Wright displaces the conversation onto Ayers and raises expectations. And time and time, McCain doesn’t go there. He mentions Ayers in a speech or interview, or gives the tough talk to Sarah Palin. He neglects to speak about Ayers in a debate. He says that Ayers isn’t relevant.

Not to mention the fact that he failed to pick up the bait offered by one supporter at a rally in Wisconsin yesterday:

At a normal campaign rally, it’s the candidate who tries to whip the crowd into a frenzy. At John McCain’s town hall in Waukesha, Wis., Thursday, it was the other way around. “I’m mad, and I’m really mad,” said one man who’d been called on to ask a question. “It’s not the economy. It’s the socialist taking over our country.” McCain started to respond, and the man shot back sternly. “Let me finish please. When you have an Obama, Pelosi, and the rest of the hooligans up there gonna run this country, we’ve got to have our head examined. It’s time that you two who are representing us, and we are mad.”

After the crowd stopped chanting “USA,” McCain promised that he would take on Obama and the Democrats (and wisely didn’t choose the moment to present his case for the financial bailout or his plan to have the government buy mortgages). Before the question-and-answer portion of the rally, McCain had already clobbered Obama several times. But the audience stuffed into the gymnasium at a local sports center wasn’t satisfied.

McCain’s response was rather tepid given the vitriol:

McCain responded:

“Well, sir, with your help and the people in this room, we will find out. Just as Sen. Clinton said in the primary that we should find out about this association.

“Look, we don’t care about an old washed-up terrorist and his wife, who still, at least on Sept. 11, 2001, said he still wanted to bomb more. That’s not the point here. The point is Sen. Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood. We know that’s just not true. We need to know the full extent of the relationship because of whether Sen. Obama is telling the truth to the American people or not. That’s the question.”

So, essentially, McCain undercut the importance of his own campaign’s concentration on the Ayers issue. To me, that’s a clear indication that he’s not comfortable with the tone he’s had to take in these final weeks of the campaign, and not committed to the aggressive push that some of his supporters believe is necessary.

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