Obama Turns Endorsement Into Attack and McCain's Wild Response (in effect, thanks but no thanks Mr. Vice President)

From The Wall Street Journal:

A high-level endorsement usually gives a presidential candidate a boost…unless the endorsement comes from Dick Cheney [the person largely credited with initiating the war in Iraq and influencing President Bush’s foreign policy agenda].

Barack Obama seized on the unpopular sitting vice president’s backing of John McCain, quickly turning it into an attack.

“Earlier today, Dick Cheney came out of his undisclosed location and hit the campaign trail. He said that he is, and I quote, ‘delighted to support John McCain,’” Obama said at an outdoor rally in this Colorado town where he was accompanied by his wife and two young daughters.

“I’d like to congratulate Sen. McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it. That endorsement didn’t come easy. Sen. McCain had to vote 90% of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get his support.”

With three days to go until Election Day, the Cheney endorsement fit into a broader narrative the Obama campaign has been trying to develop for months that McCain is a clone of President Bush.

The McCain campaign responded to the attack, not by defending the vice president’s credentials, but by reminding voters of reports early on in the campaign that traced Obama’s ancestry to that of the vice president concluding that they are distant cousins.

“Barack Obama and Dick Cheney aren’t just cousins, they’ve shared support for the Bush energy policy and the out-of-control spending that John McCain has fought to oppose,” McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.