Battles and Smear Tactics Start on the Campain Trail

On Saturday, just two days after the vice-presidential debates, Palin has begun associating Obama with terrorists. She has made comments such as:"Our opponent though, is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." at a fundraising event and a rally in Carson, California.

CNN has reported the man in question is Bill Ayers, the founder of the radical Weather Underground, which was responsible for several bombings in the early 1970s, including the Pentagon and the Capitol. Records show that he has met with Obama several times after 1995 when he received a seat in the Illinois senate. 

The Obama campaign has quickly denied such claims, stating that Obama and Ayers met while the latter was a professor and worked in a non-profit group trying to raise funds for school improvement projects and a charitable foundation. the Obama campain's spokesman Ben LaBolt said the two had not spoken over the phone or email since 2005 when Obama entered the US Senate, and only met once more than a year ago when they encountered each other on the streets of Chicago. 

Even the New York Times article that Palin referenced as a source of her information stated, "A review of records of the schools project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

The Obama campaign is now fighting back against the McCain campaign, as noted by the Washington Post. Obama has said, the McCain Campain people "are gambling that [McCain] can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance. They'd rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up. It's what you do when you're out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time." 

Also, Obama allies have warned the GOP that if he is going to use such tactics against the Democratic Presidential Candidate, then they may start reminding voters about McCain's ties to Charles Keating, a convicted savings and loan owner whose actions two decades ago triggered a Senate ethics investigation that involved McCain as one of the "Keating Five." (Washington Post)