by John McCormick, updated
ASHEVILLE, N.C. - In the days before and after Tuesday's presidential debate, Barack Obama will spend all of his time in states where Democratic presidential candidates rarely go, especially this close to an election.
This weekend and through the middle of this week, Obama is focusing on Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana. It has been nearly a month, for example, since he even visited the battleground of battlegrounds, Ohio.
The red state itinerary is the latest example of just how aggressively the Illinois senator has worked to widen the playing field, boosted by an economic crisis that he is now charging his opponent has handled in an "erratic" fashion.
Emerging briefly Sunday afternoon from his debate camp, Obama responded to attacks made over the weekend by Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who alleged that he had spent time "palling around with terrorists."
He specifically focused on a comment a top adviser to Sen. John McCain made in a Washington Post story over the weekend where he said Republicans are "looking forward to turning a page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's aggressively liberal record and how he will be too risky for Americans."
The Democratic nominee mocked the remark in an outdoor appearance in a high school football and track stadium that his campaign said was filled with about 22,000, an estimate that was more than double what the local paper said could be accommodated.
"Think about that for a second. Turn the page on the economy? We are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and John McCain wants us to 'turn the page' on talking about the economy?" Obama asked.
"In 30 days, you are going to elect the next president, and you deserve and you need a president who is going to wake up every single day and fight for you, fight for the middle class, fight to create jobs and grow our economy again," he said. "Here's what we don't need: we don't need another president who doesn't get it."
Palin was referring to Obama's ties to former 1960s radical Bill Ayers, an acquaintance from Chicago community work and his neighborhood.
The Alaska governor showed no interest in backing down from her Saturday comments, as she spoke briefly to reporters Sunday in California.
"The comments are about an association that has been known, but hasn't been talked about and I think it's fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy's living room," she said, according to a pool report of the exchange.
"Having been associated with that group, a known domestic terrorist group, it's important for Americans to know," she continued. "It's really important for Americans to start knowing who the real Barack Obama is."
As Sen. Hillary Clinton did during the primary campaign, McCain's campaign seems increasingly interested in trying to tie Obama to Chicago and Illinois political culture renowned for corruption and filled with characters who range from felonious to just outrageous.
The most damaging controversies of Obama's presidential bid have been rooted in Chicago and have involved controversial ministers like Jeremiah Wright Jr. and Michael Pfleger, and convicted fundraiser and developer Antoin "Tony" Rezko, as well as Ayers.
McCain's campaign on Sunday maintained Ayers is a fair topic, as is Rezko, who Obama once had a chummy and politically beneficial relationship with.
"The last four weeks of this election will be about whether the American people are willing to turn our economy and national security over to Barack Obama, a man with little record, questionable judgment, and ties to radical figures like unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.
"Americans need to ask themselves if they've ever befriended an unrepentant terrorist, or had a convicted felon help them buy their house -- because those aren't smears, those are true facts about Barack Obama," Bounds added.
Obama suggested McCain's campaign is "gambling" that it can "distract you with smears" rather than talk about substance.
"They'd rather tear our campaign down, than lift this country up," he said. "That's what you do when you're out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time."
Using the kind of slang language he often does when speaking before an audience with a sizable number of African Americans, Obama pledged not to be distracted.
"We're not going to let him hoodwink ya, or bamboozle ya," he said. "We're not going to let him run the okey doke on ya."
Before Obama set up his debate camp in this liberal bastion nestled between the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky mountains, amid otherwise conservative western North Carolina, he stopped Saturday in Virginia, a state where he is also spending heavily on advertising.
In his long-shot effort to win North Carolina, where George Bush beat John Kerry in 2004 by 12 percentage points, Obama will need to score wide margins among transplants to the state and blacks, who represent about a fifth of the registered voters.
Aside from his current swing, most of Obama's focus has been in higher income and better educated parts of the state, including Charlotte and the fast growing metropolitan areas that form the Research Triangle.
No Democrat has won the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976, the only Democratic presidential candidate to carry North Carolina in the past 10 elections.
Paul Cox, Obama's North Carolina spokesman, said the campaign now has more than 40 offices in the state. He said Democrats have registered about 224,000 new voters since the start of the year, compared to 40,000 for Republicans.
Several dozen protesters greeted those arriving at Obama's event, including one woman holding an American flag and carry a sign that read "Bitter Clinger for McCain Palin," a reference to a controversial remark Obama made this spring at a closed-door fundraiser in San Francisco.
This is Obama's fifth visit to North Carolina since the start of the general election campaign. And about the same time Obama departs from the state Tuesday morning, his wife is scheduled to land in the Tar Heel state for an event with military families.
The morning after the debate in Nashville, meanwhile, he is scheduled to fly to Indiana, a state that has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1964.
In all three traditionally red states, Obama has been boosted by his long primary campaign against Clinton, a stressful period for Democrats that nonetheless helped register new voters and build robust political organizations.
After pulling out of Michigan last week, McCain, meanwhile, is campaigning aggressively in just four states that Kerry won in 2004: Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
But if the current trend line continues, he may need to reconsider Minnesota, where a Star Tribune Minnesota Poll released Sunday showed Obama ahead of McCain, 55 percent to 37 percent.
Obama, meanwhile, has spent time and money in at least nine states Bush won in 2004, including Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.
Obama's debate camp here has already generated the kind of extensive local media coverage campaigns covet. The Asheville Citizen-Times had four stories about his arrival and event in its Sunday editions, including two that led the newspaper.

Comments
I don't think McCain has figured out that Obama is not Kerry.
I think he's about ready to find out.
Posted by: cta | October 5, 2008 4:16 PM
I wish Sarah would at least try speaking the English language. This slang BS is getting old. The Ayers, Rezko stuff isn't going to work.
Posted by: Flo | October 5, 2008 4:16 PM
Hey, here's an idea: let's call them Northern Virginies commies - heck, they're right next door to that dadgum yankee pinko state of Maryland.
Gosh darn it, I betcha that'll make 'em vote for McCain.
Posted by: judd | October 5, 2008 4:22 PM
A lie and smear sounds the same whether it is spoken in folksy lingo or not. The morally bankrupt republicans who have driven us to the edge of ruin, escape from the sewer lids that contain them to bring the lowest form of politics,once again, to America. Mavericks? Well on letter is correct....M...for More of the same.
Posted by: bill r. | October 5, 2008 4:37 PM
google KEATING FIVE
Posted by: beatupfromfeetup | October 5, 2008 4:37 PM
I bet Obama gets a big bump in donations.
Posted by: tad | October 5, 2008 4:40 PM
Palin doesn't believe that ANY US Senator pals around with terrorists. ... The name of her game is "Let's don't talk about the economy. I will recite the phone book before I will talk about the economy. Quick, look over there! The terrists are gettin us, boy howdy!"
Posted by: zorg | October 5, 2008 4:45 PM
Using the kind of slang language he often does when speaking before an audience with a sizable number of African Americans, Obama pledged not to be distracted.
"We're not going to let him hoodwink ya, or bamboozle ya," he said. "We're not going to let him run the okey doke on ya."
Ummmm... I'm a black person and I've NEVER used okey doke or bamboozle. I think you are confusing us with the Andy Griffith show or talking about someone who lives in Mayberry. That's some midwest whitespeak if I ever heard it! lol!
Posted by: Avant Strangel | October 5, 2008 4:47 PM
Obama's use of slang phrases such as
"We're not going to let him hoodwink ya, or bamboozle ya," seems to be aimed as a lighthearted jab at Sarah Palin, whose use of parochial phraseology like 'gosh darn it' etc, has recently been on display to just under 70 million people. He may be playing to an African-American audience but 10 to 1 he is just mocking Palin.
Posted by: G B R | October 5, 2008 4:49 PM
Palin pals around with traitors. She encourages those who would destroy our nation to "keep up the good work".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvPNXYrIyI
Talk about America hating pals. She is a hypocrite. She is a fellow traveller with traitors.
Posted by: .Mel | October 5, 2008 4:51 PM
A grassroots response to the deficiencies that are so glaringly obvious in our existing mainstream media structure is now underway.
http://breakthematrix.com/BreakTheMatrix/Why-not-include-them
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson
Posted by: Matt | October 5, 2008 4:54 PM
Obama is not going to give the middle class a thing - there will be no money! Wake up people, he can't give you what he promises. Put him in office and he will have to tell you that due to the financial crisis those promises will be coming, but more than likely in his second term when the bailout has had a chance to work. Mark my words, he's selling you a bill of goods he can't deliver on and he knows it, he just counts on you not knowing it.
Posted by: vla | October 5, 2008 4:56 PM
Oh the smell of desperation. McCain is mistaken if he thinks Palin, the nation joke she is, will be effective in any way as the attack dog. I predict her recent racial statement ("he's not one of us")to a crowd of white supporters will drive Obama's minority support through the roof. Also Palin misquotes Madelin Albright and states women deserve a place in hell if they don't support women. Uh, ms. hockey mom, do you know that women are 50% of the electorate?
Posted by: sean | October 5, 2008 5:09 PM
So glad these "racist" "radical" terms have come up.
Is the AP saying that Ayres is BLACK?
The AP is playing the race card.
It's about time the mainstram, left-wing Obama-mania media has been FORCED into bringing the facts about Obama's RADICAL associations into the brutal light of day-
Unrepentant terrorist Ayres was "not a casual acquaintance from Barry's past."
Google: Stanley Kurtz-Annenberg
Obama-Acorn
Obama-Rev GD America Wright
Obama-Father Fleuger- and the list just keeps on going with Tony Rezko, Franklin Raines, Christopher Dodd, Fannie and Freddie, Farrakhan, foreign campaign donations and those from Hamas and Hezbollah.
Tune into "Hannity's America" tonight at 9 p.m. on the Fox News network- so see an in-depth report on these associations and others.
(Yeah- I know, the Lefties hate Hannity- but buck it up and open your eyes for a change).
Till then, spend some time on the website:
www.obamawtf.blogspot.com
(Obama-What's Facts).
Stop drinking the Kool Aid and realize this country is in mortal danger from this left wing Marxist, black theology man-child of questionable ties, relationships and beliefs.
McCain-Palin 2008
VOTE- and don't waste your precious right to vote on a "write in candidate."
Make your voices heard and your VOTES COUNT !
Posted by: Cunning Linguist | October 5, 2008 5:12 PM
"The last four weeks of this election will be about whether the American people are willing to turn our economy and national security over to Barack Obama, a man with little record, questionable judgment, and ties to radical figures like unrepentant domestic terrorist William Ayers," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.
"Americans need to ask themselves if they've ever befriended an unrepentant terrorist, or had a convicted felon help them buy their house -- because those aren't smears, those are true facts about Barack Obama," Bounds added.
Posted by: Hanso | October 5, 2008 5:16 PM
John McCain is an erratic old man.
Rather loose his integrity than loose a campaign.
Meanwhile someone should remind sarah that the man she still sleeps with is an ex-secessionist.
Posted by: Raymond Micheals | October 5, 2008 5:19 PM
Notice how John McCain doesn't work on weekends? Reminds me too much of Bush, how much time will John McCain spend *vacationing* at one of his ranches?
We need a president who has the energy and stamina to work for us 7 days a week.
Take a look at how hard Barack Obama is working for you, America!
Steady, consistent, and in touch with everyday americans and working families, that's the kind of president we need!
Posted by: Dave | October 5, 2008 5:28 PM
she's got some "hubris" to go attacking someone else when she can't even speak intelligently in an interview to defend herself..
Posted by: todd palin unaffiliated | October 5, 2008 5:37 PM
Can the republicans ever present us with a quality candidate for office? They have presented us with Nixon (impeached), Agnew (imprisoned), Reagan (Alzheimer's), GHW Bush (tolerable), Quayle (illiterate), Cheaney (Haliburton/KBR frauds), GW Bush (economically bankrupt). now they give us McCain who has serious judgment issues having picked an air headed religious hypocrite as a running mate and refuses to admit Iraq was nothing more than a revenge assassination by a chipmunk and a madman against the president of a sovereign nation that threatened America with nothing more than hot air. Given that track record we would be better off with a cadaver or is that what they gave us???
Posted by: anOPINIONATEDsob | October 5, 2008 5:40 PM
Obama is intelligent. I'd rather turn the country over to him then take a chance on McSame conking out and having that know-nothing joke, Sarah Palin step in. McCain/Palin don't have any plans, thoughts, ideas, etc. The only thing they have are attacks and insults. When pressed, they just look to Obama and give us "Yeah, what he said." They try to steal Obamas plans, ideas, and even campaign slogan. They're right, Change is Coming, but it isn't them. I hope it's Obama. He is change. Palin and McCain are the reason that there are copyrights and patents, for inventors. They'll do and say any and everything to win. They don't care about America. They're just running their lips. Lots of lip and no substance. An empty suit and an empty dress!
Posted by: Vegas | October 5, 2008 5:41 PM
I have been a life-long Republican and have voted Republican no matter who they were but enough is enough. If McCain and Palin need to descend to this level, I for one will deny them my vote until they drag themselves up from the mud and start dealing with the issues voters are trying to deal with each and every day. Shame on you.
Posted by: Angry Republican | October 5, 2008 5:46 PM
Dave, didn't Obama take a Hawaii vacation? Far as I'm concerned I'd like to put him on permanent vacation, send him out to Hollyweird, he can be Letterman's co-host or get a job on The View or MSNBC.
Posted by: vla | October 5, 2008 5:46 PM
Guilt by association is a dangerous game. We might, for instance, point out that Palin has been sleeping with a man who joined a party that thinks so little of America that it advocates succession from the country. This didn't happen when Sarah Palin was eight years old, and as a gubernatorial candidate she spoke at the party's 2006 convention. As governor she told the party, "Keep up the good work!"
Palling around with people who don't see America the way you and I do? Check the mirror, Sarah.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/us/politics/04party.html?ref=politics
Posted by: brainmaps | October 5, 2008 5:48 PM
McCain and Palin have no plan for the economy, and no plan to end the war in Iraq. All they have is slash and burn politics.
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, was our greatest President and he got our country out of the great depression after Hoover, the Republican, had no economic regulation and his policies created the great depression. A Republican is a Republican. I don't want 4 more years of Bush and Cheney.
VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA AND LETS GET A DEMOCRAT WIN IN NOVEMBER!
Posted by: Dan1967 | October 5, 2008 5:51 PM
It's only a smear if it isn't true.
Posted by: Greg | October 5, 2008 6:10 PM
Palin is playing with fire here!
Now let us see, who is it that is married to a man that wanted to break up the United States by having Alaska declare independance? Oh yes, the smolly lolly lady from Alaska!
Posted by: Bill Roy | October 5, 2008 6:11 PM
Obama didn't respond to the terrorist accusation.
He is talking around it because he can't deny it.
America wants to hear what Obama says, not an avoidance of the subject.
He can't talk his way out of everything. Face it.
Posted by: Reina | October 5, 2008 6:13 PM
DISPATCHES FROM THE GROUND WAR ...
BEN SMITH OF POLITICO IS REPORTING ...
A shot across the bows
Paul Begala, in a shot on Meet the Press that sounds like something other than an offhand remark, suggests an Obama comeback to an expected McCain ad blitz on the Ayers relationship.
Obama, he was asked about this in a debate in the primaries with Hillary Clinton sitting there, and George Stephanopoulos of ABC asked him about it. He answered it, pointed out that the despicable acts this guy committed were committed when apparently Barack Obama was eight years old.
And I think Governor Palin here is making a strategic mistake. This guilt by association path is going to be trouble ultimately for the McCain campaign. You know, you can go back, I have written a book about McCain, I had a dozen researchers go through him, I didn’t even put this in the book.
But John McCain sat on the board of a very right-wing organization, it was the U.S. Council for World Freedom, it was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub, who wound up involved in the Iran contra scandal. It was an ultra conservative, right-wing group.
The Anti-Defamation League, in 1981 when McCain was on the board, said this about this organization. It was affiliated with the World Anti-Communist League – the parent organization – which ADL said “has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.”
Now, that's not John McCain, I don't think he is that. But you know, the problem is that a lot of people know John McCain’s record better than Governor Palin. And he does not want to play guilt by association or this thing could blow up in his face.
The guilt-by-association attacks on Obama are as much about tapping into a range of hazier doubts as they are about the details of any given charge, so I'm not sure they'd work on the better-known McCain.
There is no shortage of mud like this on both sides, though, from Ayers and Rezko to Gordon Liddy and the Alaska Independence Party.
_____________________
You can find more about the World Anti-Communist League on page 291 of my book, Dossier Secreto: Argentina's Desaparecidos and the Myth of the "Dirty War."
In it I point out that at the Fourth Congress of the Latin American Anti-Communist Confederation (CAL), a World Anti-Communist League affliliate, participants included Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson; his Guatemalan peer, the neofascist Mario Sandoval Alarcon, and a representative of the Alpha 66 Cuban-exile terrorist organization.
The CAL included a secret Mexican society called TECOS, whose dogma U.S. columnist Jack Anderson later exposed and which "made enemies of Jews, Jesuits, and communists--with a bit of medieval Nordic mythology thrown in for good measure. CAL-TECOS propaganda, published in their magazine, Replica, aired weird stores about Jews, witches, drug addicts and homosexuals taking over the Vatican. During his visit to Mexico, Pope John Paul II was elevated by the propagandists from a homosexual drug addict to the anti-Christ."
Replica had once listed Stefano Della Chiaie, the Italian narcoterrorist who worked with fugitive German Nazi Klaus Barbie in Bolivia, as one of its foreign correspondents.
Posted by: Martin Edwin Andersen | October 5, 2008 6:14 PM
"Having been associated with that group, a known domestic terrorist group, it's important for Americans to know," she continued. "It's really important for Americans to start knowing who the real Barack Obama is," says Sarah Palin.
Which terrorist "group" has Obama been associated with? I understand that someone he knows was once a violent revolutionary. One person does not make a "group." And knowing this person does not make one an associate of a defunct group.
But Mrs. Palin, now, she says, "Keep up the Good Work!" to a group in Alaska that wants to leave the union. Her husband was a member of this group in 2002. I say "It's really important for Americans to start knowing who the real Sarah Palin is!"
Posted by: athena | October 5, 2008 6:18 PM
Funny how McCain has absolutely NO PROBLEM w/ the fact that PALIN is MARRIED to a SECESSIONIST, and that she, herself, not only attended meetings of the Alaskan Independence Party, but also gave a speech at an API convention.
"I'm an Alaskan, NOT AN AMERICAN. I've got no use for America or her damned institutions." - Joe Vogler, Founder of the Alaskan Independence Party
As for convicted felons - John Keating of the "Keating Five" fame (note how financial disaster always comes around due to McCain's continued push for deregulation) and many more (heck, McCain's wife is a convicted felon.).
Total HYPOCRISY!!
Posted by: cscs7 | October 5, 2008 6:27 PM
Instead of addressing the accusations of associating with terrorist,
Obama reacts like a terrorist by threatening all who dare to criticize or challenge him.
Posted by: Darlene Stevenson | October 5, 2008 6:39 PM
Yes Obama knows Ayers and serves on many charity boards with him. Yes Obama receive campaign donations from convicted Resko. But what Tucker and Palin fail to tell the public is Obama was 7 when Weather-Ground was a activist group, and all of Resko's campaign donations were given to charity once discovered he was under investigation. Under the Constitution of United States, we are not guilty by association. Now on another note: Troopergate investigation with Palin is On going. And McCain is ONE of the Keating Five! FactCheck.Org. Facts...not smears.
Vote smart...not fear.
Posted by: Lee | October 5, 2008 6:39 PM
Finally the left wingers are getting some press they deserve. obama is going down with his radical friends. the last thing this country needs is an another jimmy carter type idot in the shite house.
Posted by: jesse jackson | October 5, 2008 6:39 PM
At the VP debate Ms. Palin pitifully chastized the Democrats for 'looking backward'--though Bush is still in office, so how that makes sense I don't know. Yet, today, Palin is bringing up this rather insubstantial association of Obama's from more than a decade ago! Who's looking back?! Are we still fighting over the legacy of Vietnam, no wonder finishing off today's business is so difficult.
Posted by: Brian | October 5, 2008 6:43 PM
If you want to hear something go to U TUBE click on Jamal Bryant and Sarah Palin. this is a woman who beleive in withcraft. Why is she not going to Alaska answering her supeona with her fishing husband Todd.
Posted by: debra h. caldwell | October 5, 2008 6:47 PM
Obama is a bumpersticker candidate at best. Living in Illinois I have seen what he has done for his constituents...NOTHING. Failed housing projects that funneled 100 million into Tony Rezkos pockets. Hard on guns but even softer on crime. To be nice, I will call his "friends" questionable. Public alignments with Ayers, Wright, and Rezko. Now he says he is ready to turn our countries economy around with one of his top economic advisers is a recent president of Freddie Mac. You Dems, backed the wrong horse...
Posted by: JayS | October 5, 2008 6:49 PM
Yes, your obvious intelligence shines through:
"the last thing this country needs is an another jimmy carter type idot in the shite house."
Maybe that's why Palin appeals so much to you.
Posted by: cta | October 5, 2008 6:54 PM
Palin only highlighted a report in the New York Times, why isn't anyone questioning their motivation or accusing them of dirty politics?
And Dan1967 - WWII is what brought the USA out of the Great Depression, not the economic policies of FDR.
Posted by: D.D. | October 5, 2008 6:55 PM
I hope Obama do not just play defense when the "liberal media” come at him with this mess about Ayers. He needs to state Sarah Palin's husband association with the Alaska Independence Party (AIP). A secessionist extremist organization. How she made a video welcoming this organization to Alaska .It also seems that the Alaska Independence Party (AIP) is also affiliated with, or have at least "rubbed shoulders" with some of the worst elements of the Southern White Supremacist movement as identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And now for MAD MAC. I found this to be interesting from another blog.
“Arnold R. Weber, A Chicago Annenberg Board Member, was an Assistant Secretary of Labor and Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Nixon; Weber also served as an advisor to President Carter and President Reagan. Arnold R. Weber, is the former president of the Commercial Club of Chicago’s Civic Committee and he is a longtime Republican donor. From 1998-2003 he was a member of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge Board, the organization founded by terrorist Bill Ayers (!).”
“Weber has given $1,500 to the McCain Campaign in 2008! In 2008, Arnold Weber donated $1,000 and $500 to McCain’s presidential campaign.”
Now, go tell the world!
Posted by: deappd | October 5, 2008 7:01 PM
In 1995 Bill Ayers founded a school called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge or (CAC). Bill Ayers appointed Obama as his first chairman and Obama and Bill Ayers collaborated together to write CAC’s bylaws. These two men do have a history, not to mention with Mike Klonsky as well. The McCain campaign has not even scratched the surface of Obama's involvement with ACORN regarding the housing crisis. The media and Obama ( one and the same ) will be on the defensive from here on out because they don't have anything on McCain.
Bill Ayers:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2169
Obama:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html
Posted by: Campbell | October 5, 2008 7:02 PM
Palin just doesn't get it...People think she is a moron..She is so shallow she thinks the crowds want to hear what she has to say...Actually they want to be able to say they saw her and heard her because she is such an unbeleivable piece of work..She seems to be hung up in the cheerleader mode and never got past it..Obama should fight her smears with the same about her...I hear she has LOTS of dirty laundry...He needs to air all of it he can find....Hopefully soon she and her family will go home....
Posted by: Randollph | October 5, 2008 7:06 PM
Defeat Defeat in 2008. John McCain/Palin for President.
Obama can't defend his dispicable acts. He hung with Wright his Mentor. He hung with Ayers and Rezko his money man.
Don't let a man led by racist and corruption lead.
Also, don't listen to the liberals who post on these stories. They are the most mean spirited anti-American people that walk the great streets of the United States. They blast a Governor because she cares for her childern, her State, and her Country. God Bless Sarah Palin. Keep you chin up. The lies are just that lies.
Posted by: Democrats for Truth | October 5, 2008 7:08 PM
I've got news for you obamanites — Ayers is just the beginning, it's gets better...just wait.
Posted by: curtis | October 5, 2008 7:14 PM
I was wondering whether a psyche exam would be appropriate for Palin.For her to attack Mr. Ayers without provocation has some kind of psychiatric connotation to it. She has hid her life and sometimes covered up anything dealing with her. She lies without remorse. The only thing transparrent about Palin is her glasses!
Posted by: Shirley | October 5, 2008 7:18 PM
Via--
As opposed to McCain who will make tax-cuts for the rich permanent. Guess who gets to pick up the slack in revenue? Borrow and spend Republicans have ruined our country, it will take decades to recover.
Posted by: dt | October 5, 2008 7:20 PM
The riot and bomb conspiracy charges against Ayers were dropped in 1974, and he is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. So where's the story?
Posted by: Mike | October 5, 2008 7:25 PM
Uh, Darlene--How is it that Obama threatened anybody? What "threatening" thing did he say and to whom did he say it?
Posted by: dt | October 5, 2008 7:26 PM
This confirms that Sarah Palin is an Ayers-head.
Posted by: Martin Edwin Andersen | October 5, 2008 7:47 PM
I've got news for you obamanites — Ayers is just the beginning, it's gets better...just wait.
Posted by: curtis | October 5, 2008 7:14 PM
It gets better? Just for the brainless zombies on the right. For those independents it's the kiss of death.
Posted by: bill r. | October 5, 2008 7:52 PM
FACTS are FACTS-Obama did hang out with these thugs, denying this is insane. What you think of it is a different story. But denying it is freaking creepy! I know people fear our rights have been trampled by the Bush admin, but I truly fear the abuses we face under O and the propagandist media, the symbolism they use smacks of nazism. Where's Hillary? Her I can vote for O, no!
Posted by: Mike | October 5, 2008 7:57 PM
Palin is an IDIOT. She can't say anything intelligent or good about her or McCain's platform so she has to take things out of context about Obama. She is a STUPID, DUMB ATTACK DOG - nothing more.
Posted by: dkowhnii | October 5, 2008 7:58 PM
"Associated with that grup"? Obama was 8 years old when the Weathrmen were a "group". How pathetic can McCain/Palin get? Pretty pathetic obviously.
Posted by: takdan | October 5, 2008 8:00 PM
The majority of people in this country are fed up with the politics of smear and fear. The McCain/Palin attacks on Obama are ludicrous if you know the facts. They are a smear campaign obviously aimed to distract from the fact that Obama showed beyond doubt that he is eminently equipped to lead this country through the current financial mess and all its ramifications. McCain's and Palin's intellectual and political bankrupcy is painfully clear. I think they and their blind supporters are going to have a very rude awakening on election day.
Posted by: AJBF | October 5, 2008 8:04 PM
Hmmm....with 159,000 jobs lost last month, the McSame campaign is going to go "swiftboat" on Obama. This isn't 2004, and this tactic, in conjunction with McSame's ridiculous mishandling of the "fundamentals of the economy" are going to end up sealing the deal for Obama. If McSame had picked a qualified running mate, the words coming out of Palin's mouth wouldn't be near as transparent as they are. She's just reading what Rick Davis is putting in front of her, and it's obvious to everyone. It's sad to see someone who was smeared by Bush in 2000 sell his soul to the same people who smeared him, but I guess the John McCain of 2000 is no longer around. With the economy in a recession, job losses continuing to mount, and the never-ending war in Iraq, this is going to backfire on McSame in a hurry. He's already gotten all the mileage out of the base that he could, now he's going to alienate himself even more.
Posted by: karl | October 5, 2008 8:12 PM
Obama wasn't 8 years old when he worked with Ayers on the Annenberg Project which was a multimillion dollar liberal failure and boondoggle. He wasn't 8 when he spent 20 years with Rev.s Wright & Pflager America haters. He wasn't 8 when he teamed up with Kalid. He married someone who hates America. He a wuss.
Posted by: Kara | October 5, 2008 8:18 PM
Palin better say what she needs to say before she gets put away for abuse of power. And she seems to forget that republians trained Osama Bin Ladin, put Saddam in power, and have sponsored many of the terrorist we are at war with now. This is a lame attempt to scare people in FL because it looks like an Obama landslide is coming. McCain-Palin will be the next Mondale-Ferraro.
Posted by: Jamie | October 5, 2008 8:20 PM
Ladies and Gentlemen !
Here before you ...
the GOP Candidacy ...
In The Death Throes !
Hurray for America !
----------------------------
Why would America REWARD complete Republican failure ?
We wont.
Posted by: PulSamsara | October 5, 2008 8:31 PM
OK. MS Palin! NUKEELAR energy! The woman is illiterate and apart from introducing her family over and over again she has contributed NOTHING to this campaign!
Posted by: Nick | October 5, 2008 8:32 PM
Weatherman were a thing so obviously Obama can't believe in what it stands for. Okay, but by that logic Karl Marx wrote "The Communist Manifesto" in 1848 so obviously Lenin, Stalin, Che Guevera, Castro can't/couldn;t possibly believe in communism or socialism.
Posted by: Jim S | October 5, 2008 8:33 PM
Google "Palin Alaskan Independence Party". An America hating institution. Those with glass houses....
Posted by: Chocolate Cowgirl | October 5, 2008 8:38 PM
The country should be made aware of John McCain's association with a felon who was convicted by the DEA of diverting controlled substances for her personal use. In fact, John McCain has an ongoing relationship with this person to this day-because he is married to her. Let's compare Mr. Obama's relationship with Mr. Ayers to John's relationship with Cindy McCain. Cindy had a drug problem for year that was barely covered up and came to light when she stole controlled substances from a clinic that she did work for. In fact she not only stole, she had the physician at the clinic falsify prescriptions in the name of others who worked at the clinic. But...she never spent a day in jail because the McCain political machine and her own wealth helped to get her a slap on the wrist while anyone else would have spent years in jail. If the press would quit giving John McCain a free pass and get down to investigating the cover-up of Cindy McCain's crime the country would have an idea about how this great war hero/double-talker conducts himself. Drug diversion of the kind that Cindy McCain was found guilty of should have resulted in jail time, period. Why didn't it and why doesn't the Tribune find out why? It would be very interesting to speak with the DEA as to why she spent no jail time and yet the physician who wrote the prescriptions lost his right to practice. Bill Ayers indeed.
Posted by: Judge Roy Bean | October 5, 2008 8:40 PM
Hey John McCain - if you're such a maverick, how about you start by rejecting the Bush and Rove swift-boat tactics and tell us what you're actually going to do? I've had enough of the GOP trying to scare us into voting for them - that's just bullying. And look where it's gotten us - the country is much worse off now than it was 8 years ago. So, McCain, if you want my vote, don't just call yourself a maverick, maybe you should start acting like one.
Posted by: fred | October 5, 2008 8:41 PM
With the economy on thin ice and the warm winds blowing, neither candidate is going to be able to do much as president. If Obama tries to raise taxes, he will cripple whatever recovery the bail out has made, and McCain will just allow the wealthy to get away with whatever they want and the bail out fails. Either way, the shrinking middle class loses.
Posted by: Liz | October 5, 2008 8:44 PM
Sarah's reasoning would mean that Sarah is GAY because she has a gay friend. Cool. A gay vice president with 5 kids, 4 of which could be hers (not if really is gay, though.) This argument makes about as much sense as Sarah's.
Posted by: Daniel Shack | October 5, 2008 8:47 PM
Um, I was THERE this afternoon, and I think it was evident that those "slang comments" supposedly aimed at African-Americans were a total take-off of Palin's idiocy. Asheville may be a "liberal bastion" (though take a look at neighboring Madison County--democratic stronghold), but it's a pretty well-educated one, thank you very much. And not that it makes a darn bit of difference (thanks, Gov. Sarah, for giving me the freedom to use such lovely language in discussing presidential politics), but it was a mostly white crowd.
Posted by: JPierce | October 5, 2008 8:54 PM
Anyone noticed that now anything critical said about Obama is being looked at as being a form of racism? Is this where this campaign has now come, where "racism" is now the official weasel-word for trying to get out of explaining key critical questions?
Posted by: cgull | October 5, 2008 8:58 PM
There are so many "acquaintances" of both McCain and Palin that it becomes ridiculous for her to bring this up.
Obama was 8 years old when the 'Weathermen" were active. How old was she when "First Dude" was a secessionist? Or was it her?
Such BS is only available from the Rethugnicans.
Posted by: Mike | October 5, 2008 8:59 PM
Widdle Sarahh got a naughty mouth.
She like a seductress in a James Bond movie who tries to off 007.
I guess now we need some ads about the "real John MCC" and the "real SP".
The quicker, the better.
Usually the seductress end up as, er, not a well woman.
Posted by: ornery | October 5, 2008 9:15 PM
Besides putting female progress in America back to pre-1913's voting rights the most chilling fact out of everything is that Ms Palin has a degree in journalism (after 6 1/2 years) and can't put together a string of words that mean anything or that make any sense. What does that tell the world about our educational system??? What about the people who aren't "hockey mom's and "Joe six-packs"? Where do we fit in her fantasy world of Mavericks and outsiders?
Posted by: lochnessmonster | October 5, 2008 9:15 PM
REPUBLICAN MC CAIN AND PALIN YOU SUCK. PALIN GROW UP. YOUR WINK IS SO OUT OF TOUCH AND MEANS NOTNING TO US STUGGLING HARD WORKING MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS. McCain will sink us into MORE debt than the lame duck we have right now. Obama, I truly belive will deliver to the hard working middle class americans. He's awesome and remember everyone he's NOT John Kerry. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OBAMA
Posted by: REPUBLICANS SUCK | October 5, 2008 9:15 PM
I was once on a committee with Bernadette Dohrn, Ayers' wife and someone who also was a radical in the 1960's. Does that make me a suspect Unamerican person? The committee incidentally was under the sponsorship of the Chief Judge of Cook County. How suspect was that?
Posted by: eric ostrov | October 5, 2008 9:17 PM
Obama & Friends
William Ayers - domestic terrorist
Khalid Al-Monsour - radical black Muslim, ties to nation of Islam
Jermiah Wright - radical pastor
Tony Rezko - convicted felon
With past relationships like this, Obama is wrong for the country.
Posted by: NOBAMA08 | October 5, 2008 9:29 PM
"Is this where this campaign has now come, where "racism" is now the official weasel-word for trying to get out of explaining key critical questions?" - cgull
Sounds like what you're describing is "Gothca" journalism? No? - That's the problem with crying to the media and then throwing stones. You can't have it both ways. All the McSame credibility has been used.
Posted by: karl | October 5, 2008 9:31 PM
Obama has 5 commercials currently running that FactCheck and even the NY Times have called lies. And he complains about being smeared?
Posted by: Crazy Politico | October 5, 2008 9:31 PM
Obama is a Marxist - just google 'Audacity of Socialism' for a primer. Wake up - the change you think you are getting may not be the change you want.
Posted by: Gregg | October 5, 2008 9:32 PM
KEATING FIVE
Posted by: kato | October 5, 2008 9:35 PM
Get your blinders off, people. Obama may have been 8 when Ayers was klling people, but was not 8 when his political career was launched in Ayer's living room. He was not 8 when he served in a board with Ayers or when his own campaign manager and apologist David Axlerod characterized them as friendly. When will Obama explain their relationship instead of issuing talking points?
Posted by: Steve | October 5, 2008 9:35 PM
What a yr for politics. I mean the rebublican smear campaign vs The democrats talking policy. Does it get any better than this. I hope America realizes how sad this all is. He said she said. We need a president who can lead us out of the problems. I'm sorry but McCain's just not with new thinking he is old school and we ned someone a little more modern thinking. I admit I'm tired old presidents with old thinking we NEED new young energy for the 21st Century.
Posted by: john Chance | October 5, 2008 9:37 PM
What a yr for politics. I mean the rebublican smear campaign vs The democrats talking policy. Does it get any better than this. I hope America realizes how sad this all is. He said she said. We need a president who can lead us out of the problems. I'm sorry but McCain's just not with new thinking he is old school and we ned someone a little more modern thinking. I admit I'm tired old presidents with old thinking we NEED new young energy for the 21st Century.
Posted by: john Chance | October 5, 2008 9:37 PM
"Hookwink", "bamboozle", and "okey dokey" are African Amwerican slang terms? On what planet?
"We will blind and hoodwink him." -Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well
Bamboozle - [Said to be of Gipsy origin.] To deceive by trickery; to cajole by confusing the senses; to hoax; to mystify; to humbug.
Posted by: simplebob | October 5, 2008 9:51 PM
ah, yes, the republican attack machine is at it again. you think maybe Palin is trying to cover up her stupid with these senseless attacks? we say "yes."
Posted by: marie s | October 5, 2008 9:54 PM
seriously palin? she should look up keating five. i was listening to the radio the other day and she said she was ready for the vp debate. she said in regards to biden debating since she was in second grade. isn't mccain older by at 6 years? she is ridiculous.
Posted by: Lynda S | October 5, 2008 9:58 PM
Until Sarah Palin holds a press conference with real follow-up questions the media should simply ignore her. She's a moron, as everybody could see in the VP debate. She can't answer follow-up questions because she'd have to answer for her BS.
All she did was deliver some sleazy line fed her by one of McCain's Bush-clones. Big deal. Tucker Bounds could have made the "palling around with terrorists" line.
Sarah Palin is a farce. Until she answers follow-up questions in a press conference - which even Dan Quayle did the day after his selection for VP - her idiotic comments should be completely ignored.
Posted by: Elrod | October 5, 2008 9:58 PM
David Brickner of Jews for Jesus spoke at Sarah Palin's church in August. She was in attendance. David Brickner is anti-Israel, Everyone needs to know about this:http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13098.html
Posted by: marc | October 5, 2008 10:00 PM
mcBush, the fake maverick...
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain
Posted by: tried and true Americand | October 5, 2008 10:19 PM
Ayers helped launch Obama's career. Ayers bombed the Capital and killed people. He is a domestic terrorist. This argument that the relationship was passing or that Obama was 8 is nonsense. Will it be ok for me to sit in Osama bin Laden's house 20 years from now, accept his money, and launch my career with his help - and then say that his past was a long time ago? NONSENSE. Don't be fooled by Obama. He's got more skeletons in his closet than a graveyard.
Posted by: Lex | October 5, 2008 10:24 PM
Obama & Friends
William Ayers (radical domestic terrorist)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEP-l9R_U3Q
Bernardine Dohrn (radical domestic terrorist), Tony Rezko (convicted felon), Rev. Jermiah Wright (radical pastor)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4vfj1hDRL8
Tony Rezko, Michelle Obama (candidate wife proud of America... for the first time (2008)), Rev. Jermiah Wright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovO8hFt8-c8
James Johnson (CEO Fannie Mae), Franklin Raines (CEO Fannie Mae)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbkEAR2GgiA
Khalid Al-Monsour (radical black Muslim)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_HZMD97nMw
Posted by: NOBAMA08 | October 5, 2008 10:24 PM
Witness the death throes of the McCain/Palin campaign ... aint' it sweet !
----------------------------------
Why would America REWARD complete Republican failure ?
We wont.
Posted by: PulSamsara | October 5, 2008 10:27 PM
why are you obama supporters not troubled by his rezko ties? his support of the buffoon todd stroger? his relationship with rev wright? do you really believe he's clean?
Posted by: rags | October 5, 2008 10:28 PM
Is Sara Palin a seccessionist or at least condone the movement? Does the Video Speak for itself.
http://www.sodahead.com/question/155020/?feed=354265&new=1&page=2&scroll=1
Posted by: deappd | October 5, 2008 10:39 PM
Look up John Dramesi POW.
http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/d/d059.htm
"...After they were back in the states, they were in different military war colleges when their paths crossed. Both colleges wrapped up with overseas trips to network with foreign military nad political leaders. McCain and Dramesi asked where each other was going:
“I’m going to the Middle East,” Dramesi says. “Turkey, Kuwait, Lebanon, Iran.”
“Why are you going to the Middle East?” McCain asks, dismissively.
“It’s a place we’re probably going to have some problems,” Dramesi says.
“Why? Where are you going to, John?”
“Oh, I’m going to Rio.”
“What the hell are you going to Rio for?”
McCain, a married father of three, shrugs.
“I got a better chance of getting laid.”
Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. "McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man," Dramesi says today. "But he's still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in.'”
Posted by: farnk | October 5, 2008 10:41 PM
Will be interesting now that the 7 Alaska state employees have to testify in trooper gate - but only after it went to court.
I wonder what she thinks about the role of the judiciary in our government, now that it it ruled against her.
Or maybe that is next week's lesson in her "Reading the Constitution 101".
Posted by: brad | October 5, 2008 10:45 PM
This is aimed at the young voters. As of right now, you have been dazzled by the rhetoric and charisma of a man who cannot discuss the issues. You are being taken for suckers because of your youth and short life experience. I encourage you to fully research this individual Barack Obama before you all fall head over heels for him. He is writing checks he cannot honor trust me. Take a good look as the right to vote is too precious to throw away because he is charismatic and uses the English language well. This is what his campaign has been based on the cult of personality so the actual issues cannot be debated each and every day.
Posted by: Laurette Franzen | October 5, 2008 10:48 PM
The Republican party really shoud be ashamed of themselves. Between the Obama terrorist connection, and saying palin has foreign relation experience because she can see Russia is an insult to anyone with an IQ higher than 1.
Posted by: LG | October 5, 2008 11:00 PM
What's that in the air? That's the stink of desperation wafting from the McCain camp. This is a sad sad tactic they are resorting to...
Posted by: Mel | October 5, 2008 11:10 PM
The great tragedy that is unfolding in American politics is the story of Sarah Palin. When they lose, and they will, she will be dumped like an old Halloween pumpkin. ...........
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/05/the-tragedy-of-sarah-palin/
Posted by: Ohg Rea Tone | October 5, 2008 11:11 PM
I think Sarah Palin is not capable of the position she seeks. What frightens me is that for the debate, when she had time to practice her answers, she was better. When she interviewed with Katie Couric and needed to think on her feet, she was a dead duck. As if George Bush hasn't made a laughing stock of the US in the world already, what do we need a VP to do the same for?
Posted by: Jodee | October 5, 2008 11:33 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-cooper/mccains-own-60s-radical-p_b_132032.html
Posted by: john | October 5, 2008 11:36 PM
Daddy was a muslim!!!
Posted by: pablo | October 5, 2008 11:42 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4
Obama, Frank and Dodd have explained how their plan for massive sub-prime loans to those who had been so cruelly shut out of the housing market by ugly cigar chomping greedy fat cat corporate lenders that had previously limited lending only to those with jobs and good credit really ended well after all and the voters, if they choose to buy that reality, can make sure they will get a lot more of it for years to come. I think we could be entering the Age of Entitlement, the natural successor to the Age of Aquarius, a wonderful and blissful time when people cavorted without clothing in the fields with flowers in their hair, living off of the prior generations wealth, angry at plastic and searching for meaning to life in Asian mountainous regions. After the great baby-boomer die-off all the money having been spent, the next generation can tell the profligate and impoverished survivors of the baby-boomer generation that they will not be paying the tab after all, social security benefits will be limited to reflect just reflect what you contributed, eternal life through the finest medicine envisioned is going to be allocated not by the government anymore but by prices and the "new deal" just did not work out very well. The wailing, anguish and gnashing of teeth will be quite loud but the next generation will simply say to Daddy Boomer that the White Man's Burden is your burden not our burden and you should have learned the joy of free enterprise and self-sufficiency as did the Russians and Chinese. Rant and spend on.
Posted by: John C. | October 5, 2008 11:49 PM
Obama will win and will hopefully punish Palin by cancelling any and all federal funding to Alaska!
Posted by: boofinley | October 6, 2008 12:40 AM
Actually, Americans have nobody to chose from in the next election. McCain does not have what it takes to run the country, and Obama will will bring the final demise of America. Americans are becoming like lemmings run over the Obama cliffs to their doom. Why not dump both of them, and start again, for the sake of your country. A concerned Australian.
Posted by: Ian Holthouse | October 6, 2008 12:54 AM
Sarah Palin only brought up two non-deniable facts:
1. Ayers was a terrorist.
2. Obama has a relationship with Ayers.
Which one of these 2 parts that Democrats don't understand?
Posted by: Ryan | October 6, 2008 1:15 AM
"Hamas Endorses Obama", as listed in "POWER LINE" at http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/04/020315.php.
From April 16, 2008, Quote:"On Sunday, Aaron Klein and John Batchelor interviewed Ahmed Yousef, chief political advisor to the Prime Minister of Hamas, on WABC radio. The interview produced a scoop which, for some reason, has not been widely publicized: Hamas has endorsed Barack Obama for President. Yousef said, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election." Why? "He has a vision to change America." Maybe Yousef has some insight into what Obama means by all