The McCain campaign is delivering on its announcement to step up attacks on Sen. Barack Obama with little more than a month until Election Day.
Referring to Obama’s relationship with William Ayers,
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accused Obama of associating “with terrorists who targeted their own country.”
Speaking at a fund-raising event in Colorado Saturday, Palin said: “This is not a man who sees America as you and I do – as the greatest force for good in the world,” Palin said, according to a statement released by the McCain-Palin campaign. “This is someone who sees American as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who targeted their own country.”
Palin was reacting to a New York Times article published Friday about the Democratic nominee’s association with Ayers, a member of the 1960’s radical group the Weathermen. The group was involved in bombings of the Pentagon and the Capitol but federal criminal charges against Ayers were eventually dropped. Ayers hosted an event in 1995 where Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer introduced Obama as the person she had chosen to succeed her because she was running for Congress. The two men were members of the same charitable board in Chicago. According to a campaign spokesman quoted in the Times story, Obama and Ayres have not spoken by phone or exchanged e-mail messages since Obama became a U.S. Senator in 2005. The newspaper says the two last met more than a year ago when they bumped into each other on the street in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood where they both live.
The Obama campaign responded swiftly to Palin’s comments. “Governor Palin’s comments, while offensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign’s statement this morning that they would be launching Swiftboat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation’s economic ills.” Obama-Biden spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement released by Obama’s campaign. “In fact, the very newspaper story Governor Palin cited in hurling her shameless attack made clear that Senator Obama is not close to Bill Ayers, much less ‘pals,’ and that he has strongly condemned the de able acts Ayers committed 40 years ago, when Obama was eight. What’s clear is that John McCain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy,” Sevugan added.
According to an article in the Washington Post, the McCain campaign has decided to take a much more aggressive approach during the remainder of the campaign that will refocus attention away from the country’s troubled economy and onto issues of Obama’s character, judgment, and personal associations.
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