For GOP, Reliable Wedge Issues Suddenly Fall Flat

Assaults on Obama from the right have been unrelenting, including charges that he "pals around with terrorists"; that he is a lockstep liberal bound by the orthodoxies of the left; that his party caused the economic crisis by requiring banks to give subprime mortgages to "unqualified minorities"; that he is a closet Muslim or Muslim sympathizer who will sell out Israel; that he would accept defeat in Iraq in order to court the antiwar vote; and so forth.
One of the toughest punches was thrown by McCain running mate Sarah Palin when she told a crowd in Clearwater, Florida: "This [Obama] is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America... I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country."
"When Palin squints her eyes, tells her supporters Obama 'pals around with terrorists,' calls him 'exotic' and invites us to wonder with her who he really is, it's that code all over again. It's a rhetorical rifle shot [revealing] a malignant mindset - us vs. them - and anyone who says otherwise is a damn liar," wrote Joe Cutbirth, ABC News commentator and adjunct professor of journalism at Columbia University.
Obama says of himself: "I'm not making an argument that the resistance is simply racial. It's more just that I'm different in all kinds of ways. I'm different even for black people... If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn't vote for me, right? Because the way I'm portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal."
In another year, the onslaught Obama has been subject to might have brought down a Democratic nominee - as Willie Horton and the Swift Boat Veterans helped to bring down Michael Dukakis and John Kerry.
But this year, not only has Obama weathered the conservative bombardment, but Republican tactics are bouncing back against John McCain.

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