The ongoing saga of the McCain Campaign’s effort to keep the political discourse respectful added another chapter today. As reported by Jon Martin, the campaign has suspended a junior staffer, Soren Dayton, a conservative blogger/consultant who worked in McCain’s political department.
His crime: Distributing, via Twitter, a smarmy Youtube video that mashes together the words of Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright, a photograph of the 1968 Olympics black power salute and a Public Enemy song, among other things. The video suggests, in a rather crude fashion, what conservative commentators have long held: That Wright’s inflammatory rhetoric is a key window on the secret radical agenda of Obama.
But the McCain campaign still ain’t gonna playing that game. As Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker told Martin, “We have been very clear on the type of campaign we intend to run and this staffer acted in violation of our policy.” Dayton’s suspension comes just a week after the McCain campaign sent reporters a opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal suggesting that Obama’s relationship with Wright showed his radical agenda. The McCain campaign later said that the article was sent out in error, and McCain told Fox News’s Sean Hannity that he does not hold Wright’s inflammatory statements against Obama. “I do know Senator Obama,” McCain said. “He does not share those views.”
And for those who are counting, the smarmy YouTube attack on Obama has yet to get many viewers. As of this posting, it has only been watched 53,694 times.