McCain draws sharp contrast with Bush, Obama

KENNER, La. — Offering his most pointed critique yet of President Bush, John McCain tonight entered the general election fray by attempting to distance himself from an unpopular incumbent while also drawing stark contrasts with presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama.

McCain, speaking just outside Katrina-scarred New Orleans, claimed he and Bush “have not seen eye to eye on many issues,” ticking off the prosecution of the war in Iraq, treatment of detainees, spending, energy and climate change.

But, hoping to find a third way between Bush and Obama, McCain noted that Obama had voted for the energy bill “promoted by President Bush and Vice President Cheney.”

Using a refrain he would recite after each jab at Obama, McCain seized on his rival’s trademark slogan to say, “That’s not change we can believe in.”

While criticizing Obama on a host of foreign and domestic issues, McCain reserved his harshest judgment for the central premise of the Illinois Democrat’s anti-establishment campaign.

“Both Sen. Obama and I promise we will end Washington's stagnant, unproductive partisanship,” McCain said. “But one of us has a record of working to do that and one of us doesn't. Americans have seen me put aside partisan and personal interests to move this country forward. They haven't seen Sen. Obama do the same.”

McCain said that only he had stood up to powerful forces within his own party.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said that while McCain “has a record of occasional independence from his party in the past, last year he chose to embrace 95 percent of George Bush's agenda, including his failed economic policies and his failed policy in Iraq.”

“No matter how hard he tries to spin it otherwise, that kind of record is simply not the change the American people are looking for or deserve,” Burton said.