McCain has hard time to solidify his lines of attack against Obama

Washington: Despite a three-month head start, John McCain has struggled to solidify lines of attack against Barack Obama for the general election, Republican operatives say and some of his own advisers acknowledge, running into problems that bedeviled Hillary Clinton's primary campaign against Obama.

The McCain camp faces the challenge of negatively defining an opponent who has a relatively short tenure in office and a thin record to dissect, unlike longer-serving senators like Clinton or John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee. McCain advisers also say they are wary of unleashing allies to attack Obama, given how some conservatives have overstepped and been criticised for racially tinged remarks.

McCain shook up his campaign managers on Wednesday, in part because of concern within his organisation and among Republicans generally about his difficulty in putting Obama on the defensive. Like those unleashed by Clinton's team in the winter and spring, the McCain camp's attacks on Obama have had a lurching quality for weeks now, several Republicans said. Some days McCain or his allies have gone after Obama's relative youth and inexperience, other days they have criticised his shifting positions on public campaign financing or policy stands on guns and gasoline prices or even his and his wife's patriotism.

On Thursday McCain aides and the Republican National Committee pounced on a comment by Obama that he would be willing to "refine" his long-held plan to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within his first 16 months in office. An exasperated-looking Obama held a second news conference Thursday to say that he was committed to the 16-month goal but that he would also follow advice regarding withdrawal from American commanders in Iraq.

"We think there is a developing pattern with Senator Obama where he is willing to reverse core positions, like on Iraq, and which show he is not a change agent but just a typical politician," said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for McCain. "We've got a long time to go to make our case."

Yet Obama, one month after securing the Democratic nomination, and his advisers have proved more deft and fleet-footed at counterpunching.