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McCain says Ayers issue is about honesty

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

October 10, 2008

WAUKESHA, Wis. - John McCain said yesterday questions about his rival Barack Obama's association with a former war protester linked to Vietnam-era bombings are part of a broader issue of honesty.

In his strongest personal criticism since his campaign began casting Obama as an unknown and unacceptable candidate, McCain told supporters Obama had not been truthful in describing his relationship with former radical William Ayers.

The Arizona senator also said Obama himself has "a clear radical, far-left pro-abortion record."

The attacks came as Cindy McCain this week accused Obama of running "the dirtiest campaign in American history." In remarks reported Tuesday by The Tennessean, she said she initially did not want her husband to seek the Republican presidential nomination after a brutal primary struggle in 2000 against George W. Bush.

Nearly every TV ad McCain ran last week was negative, compared with just 34 percent of those by Obama, according to an analysis by the Wisconsin Advertising Project out Wednesday. A poll by WISC-TV in Madison out Wednesday showed McCain trailing Obama by 10 points, the Arizona senator's largest deficit in the state since July when polls also showed Obama with a double-digit lead.

Loud cheers from 4,000 people gathered at a sports complex near Milwaukee greeted McCain's attacks over Ayers, who helped found the Weather Underground, a Vietnam protest group that bombed government buildings 40 years ago. Obama has pointed out he was a child at the time and first met Ayers and his wife, ex-radical Bernadine Dohrn, a quarter-century later.

"Look, we don't care about an old, washed-up terrorist and his wife," McCain said. "That's not the point here."

"He's a terrorist!" a man in the audience screamed without making clear to whom he was referring.

"We need to know the full extent of the relationship," McCain replied. Later, he told ABC News: "It's a factor about Sen. Obama's candor and truthfulness with the American people."

Obama has denounced Ayers and his violent actions and views.

Some of those at the rally yesterday questioned why McCain was trailing and why no one was talking about Obama's past associations. One person suggested McCain get tougher in his final debate with Obama next week: "I am begging you, sir."

"I'll do that," McCain said.

The McCain campaign also released a 90-second Web ad about Obama and Ayers. "Barack Obama and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Friends. They've worked together for years," the ad says, claiming one of the nonprofits on which Obama and Ayers worked was a radical education foundation.

In fact the foundation was The Annenberg Challenge, funded by the Annenberg Foundation, a charity set up by longtime Republican backer and newspaper publisher Walter Annenberg. His widow has endorsed McCain this year.