early and often

McCain Anoints Obama As His Rival, Obama Accepts

John McCain

Photo: Patrick McMullan

On the back of their respective strong wins in Wisconsin, John McCain has trained his sights on Barack Obama. He called the Illinois senator “naïve” for his position on bombing Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan and labeled his position on whether he would accept public campaign financing as “Washington double-talk.” Obama lashed back through a spokesman, who said, “John McCain is in no place to question anyone on pledges when he abandoned the latest campaign-finance-reform efforts in order to run for the Republican nomination and went back on his commitment to take public financing for the primary.” Obama also had an editorial this morning in USA Today about working toward a compromise on financing with McCain. “I am committed to seeking such an agreement if that commitment is matched by Senator McCain,” Obama wrote. “When the time comes, we will talk and our commitment will be tested.” Wait, wait, wait. What started off as a bunch of bickering this morning suddenly morphed into what we’ve been expecting for a few weeks now: Obama is using the old Hillary tactic of running as the de facto nominee. He’s already fighting McCain directly and treating the primary competition as though it’s over. And McCain’s helping him do it. Now, this doesn’t mean anything, really; we saw how it didn’t quite work for Hillary. But it does mean it’s about time to add a new candidate to our trademarked New York Electopedia! Everyone welcome John McCain! How much money is he worth? How did he do in high school? What does he eat? The Electopedia has all of your answers.

The 2008 Electopedia [NYM]

McCain Anoints Obama As His Rival, Obama Accepts