There's no 'change' in Obama

Having been elected twice to the Colorado House of Representatives and once to the Colorado State Senate, I have been involved in many campaigns in the US. In the process, I have been the target of numerous adverse advertisement campaigns by my opponents and by the opposing political party. The ferocity of such attacks depended on how far behind my opponent was in the polls, how much money he was able to raise and how close we were to election day.

What we are witnessing in the presidential campaign between Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama, in the past few days, indicates that the election may be too close and the candidates are trying to pull all the stops to win. As November 4 approaches, we are sure to see the level of attacks increasing steadily, on both sides. And if Obama maintains his present lead in the polls, the Republicans may resort to more direct attacks on the Democratic candidate.

Last week saw Governor Sarah Palin criticising Obama for his association with Bill Ayers, a leader of the Weather Underground, an indigenous terrorist group that bombed government buildings in the early 1970s. Ayers is known to have raised money for, and to have supported Obama in his political career.

When Obama was faced with the revelation, he said, "I assumed that Ayers had been rehabilitated". McCain retorted in an advertisement: "When convenient, he [Obama] worked with terrorist Bill Ayers. When discovered, he lied. Blind ambition, Bad judgment." The McCain camp has also tried to tie Obama to Tony Rezko, who raised funds for Obama and who was convicted of corruption in the state of Illinois.

Strategy

It is beyond me why the Republicans have not used Senator Hillary Clinton's strategy of the past few weeks of her primary campaign against Obama. It is interesting to note that ever since Clinton attacked Obama's affiliation with the reverend Jeremiah Wright, who spread so much ill against America, she won most of the remaining primaries! Unfortunately for her, she was too late in her strategy exposing Wright's attacks on America in the presence of his church member for 20 years, Senator Obama.

McCain cannot win campaigning on issues of either the economy or Iraq. His strong card is his service to his country and his patriotism. Obama's strong and close affiliation with his pastor, Wright, could be the most effective issue remaining for the Republican candidate. Wright, by Obama's own admission, was his "mentor".

To me Wright is neither reverend nor right about America. It is most inordinate for an ordained preacher to utter filth and dirt in a church against his own country. My Arabic culture taught me not to bite the hand that feeds me. Obama did neither condemn Wright nor did he resign from from his congregation, until after Clinton exposed him.

But to me as an Arab-American, proud of his adopted country and grateful for its generosity and goodness to its immigrants, I cannot, in good conscious, support a man whose mentor is Wright and whose wife became proud of her country, for the first time in her adult life, only after her husband was assured of winning the nomination of the Democratic party for president.

Moreover, as an Arab-American, I do not see the "change" that Obama prides himself on, when it comes to the Middle East. As a politically involved American, I can understand the necessity for Obama to support Israel. But his stance on making occupied Jerusalem "the undivided capital of Israel", which he later altered, and his unequivocal support of Israel, without any regard, whatsoever, to the plight of the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza are most unacceptable to me.

Sam Zakhem is a former US Ambassador to Bahrain.