Truce over, Obama comes out swinging

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who has slipped in the polls since Republican rival John McCain tapped Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, signaled early Friday that his campaign is taking the gloves off with 54 days to go.

In a memo from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, the Illinois Democrat's campaign announced the launch of two new ads, unleashed running mate Joe Biden and served warning to the media to call the game straight.

{mosads}"(McCain's) campaign has become nothing but a series of smears, lies and cynical attempts to distract from the issues that matter to the American people," Plouffe wrote.

The harshly worded memo comes just one day after the campaigns called a truce to honor the seventh anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
That truce, however, was preceded by days of intense and negative fighting as Palin energized the McCain campaign and provided it with a continued base of indignation for what the campaign saw as sexist and unfair treatment both from the Obama campaign and the media.

In "the first day of the rest of the campaign," the Obama campaign made it clear that it plans to fight McCain tooth and nail with Plouffe promising to "respond with speed and ferocity to John McCain's attacks."

"And we will take the fight to him," Plouffe said.

A Republican National Committee spokesman dismissed the latest attack as a sign of the Obama campaign weakening.

“As Obama’s star fades, he's trying to destroy John McCain and Sarah Palin with personal attacks. This is clear evidence that Obama's ‘politics of hope’ is just empty words.” – Alex Conant, RNC Spokesman.

The memo noted that part of the new hit-back strategy will include Biden, with Plouffe calling the Delaware senator an "integral" part of the campaign's new offensive.

Democrats have expressed concern in recent days as McCain's choice of Palin has both energized the Republican base and seemingly flummoxed an Obama campaign apparently caught off-guard by her selection and unsure of how to respond.

Plouffe concluded the memo by sending a message to what he called McCain's "base" — the media.

Plouffe wrote that McCain "undoubtedly is counting on his 'base' to overlook the gulf between his newly minted 'change' message and the realities of his record and campaign."

"But we trust that the obvious conflicts between their rhetoric and records, their promises and their plans will not go unreported in the last 53 days of this campaign," Plouffe wrote.