McCain tries to sow doubts about Obama

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Three months before Election Day, John McCain's stepped up aggression begs the question: Will voters vote for the scold?

A new ad launched Wednesday suggests Democratic rival Barack Obama is nothing more than a lightweight celebrity akin to a Britney Spears or a Paris Hilton. A previous ad took issue with Obama's canceled visit to injured troops. McCain has suggested Obama would rather lose a war than an election and ridicules him for the "audacity of hopelessness" in his Iraq policies.

"He's the biggest celebrity in the world," his latest ad asks. "But, is he ready to lead?"

Some Republicans welcomed McCain's confrontational strategy. New Hampshire GOP Chairman Fergus Cullen said Republicans in his state "like to see the McCain campaign on offense."

But in striking an aggressive pose, McCain is in danger of letting the caricature of an angry, petulant candidate take seed - not so much because he is one, but because it stands in stark contrast to Obama's carefully cultivated, well, celebrity, and McCain's own promises to run a respectful campaign.

"The campaign is making him seem angrier than he is and therefore it's a disservice to him," said John Weaver, McCain's former senior strategist, who left the campaign in a shake-up last year.

Angry candidates don't win elections. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton won by running as sunny optimists - one promised John Winthrop's "shining city upon a hill" and the other was the "man from Hope."

But McCain wants the presidential campaign to be about Barack Obama - that's why he talks about him so much.

To that end, McCain is helping frame a not-so-flattering portrait of Obama for voters. His ads have become increasingly tough; a third of his commercials portray Obama negatively, a new study concluded.

Polls show that the race remains tight nationally and in key battlegrounds. New state polls by Quinnipiac University show Obama leading McCain in Pennsylvania, and McCain and Obama tied in Ohio and Florida.