John McCain keeps on flogging the N.C. GOP for this ad featuring Rev. Wright and Barack Obama. This morning McCain said on CBS’s Early Show: “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure not only they stop it but that kind of leadership is rejected.” And he said on the Today show: “They’re not listening to me because they’re out of touch with reality and the Republican Party. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and this kind of campaigning is unacceptable.” Jim Geraghty wrote yesterday that McCain is being shrewd, but now that a TV station has refused to air the ad, is it possible McCain is too clever by half? Sure, McCain shouldn’t lead on the Wright connection, but he’s coming very close to making any talk of Wright beyond the pale. This is a legitimate issue–just as John Kerry’s slander that his band of brothers were a bunch of rapists and murderers was a legitimate issue in 2004. I would commend this advice from Chris Cillizza to the McCain campaign:
