Susan Ferrechio
Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin put Barack Obama and his campaign on the defensive Thursday, a day after the Alaska governor energized the GOP convention with some of the strongest attacks yet of the Democratic nominee.
Obama told reporters Republicans are picking on him because they have nothing else to talk about.
“This what they do, they don’t have an agenda to follow,” Obama said. “They have spend the entire two nights attacking me and extolling John McCain’s biography. I’ve been called worse on the basketball court.”
Obama would say nothing directly about Palin, but his campaign staff spent the hours after her speech and first part of Thursday on the defensive.
“This is what politicians do when they don’t have a record to run on,” Obama chief strategist David Axelrod told reporters Thursday in response to questions about Palin’s speech. “There wasn’t one thing that she said about Obama or what he’s proposing that’s true.
Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs told reporters at a press event sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor that Palin, “gave a tremendous speech,” that resonated with the Republicans in the convention hall.
But, Gibbs cautioned, “they are going to get a full measure of all these candidates over the next 61 days as they answer questions and walk of the stage with a teleprompter and answer questions at a town hall, how they connect to voters and thing like that.”
Gibbs admitted Palin “will have strong appeal” in rural and small town America. “But I think in this election you have to make more than just a cultural connection, you have to have an answer and a plan for the ways in which you want to help voters get back up on their feet.”
