US Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Saturday accused Democrat Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists” because of an association with a former 1960s radical.
Speaking in Englewood, Colorado, Palin questioned Obama’s character.
Palin’s reference was to Bill Ayers, one of the founders of the group Weather Underground. Its members took credit for bombings, including nonfatal explosions at the Pentagon and US Capitol, during the Vietnam War era. Obama, who was a child when the group was active, has denounced Ayers’ radical views and activities.
PHOTO: AFP
“Our opponent though is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” Palin said of Obama, also calling him an embarrassment.
The remark was dismissed by Obama as “gutter politics” but appeared to reflect an effort by Senator John McCain’s campaign to target Obama’s judgment as the Illinois senator solidifies his national lead and gains an edge in vital battleground states a month before the Nov. 4 election.
Palin cited a New York Times story on Saturday that examined Obama’s relationship with Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Times concluded they were not close.
Later, in Costa Mesa, California, after raising US$2 million from donors, the Alaska governor said she and McCain would “start to tell Americans more and more aggressively, I guess, about the choices” in the election.
Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said, “Today, the McCain-Palin team took their discredited, dishonorable campaign one desperate step further, announcing that they were going to try ‘turning a page on this financial crisis’ and launching more personal attacks on Senator Obama.”
“Instead of offering solutions for working Americans and families struggling through a failing economy, they have offered more gutter politics and false attacks,” he said in a statement.
Speaking at a fundraiser in North Carolina, on Saturday night, Obama made no direct reference to Palin’s remarks but told supporters he would continue to run a positive campaign.
“Most of all [people] are tired of the politics of distraction, the politics of division ... that says that the way to win an election is simply to run nasty ads and lie about their opponents,” he said.
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