Reid accuses McCain of smear tactics

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republican presidential nominee John McCain of "breaking a promise he made to the American people" by taking the low road in his campaign on Friday.

Reid said phone calls in Nevada and other states that link Democratic nominee Barack Obama to terrorism are "despicable and divisive" but "typical of his (McCain's) erratic behavior over the last several weeks."

Automated phone calls sponsored by the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee that began Thursday say Obama "has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans."

Ayers, a co-founder of the Weather Underground who is now a professor, served on two nonprofit boards with Obama in Chicago and hosted a neighborhood meet-and-greet for Obama when he was running for the Illinois state Senate in 1995. There is no evidence they were ever close.

The militant antiwar group claimed responsibility for several bombings in the 1960s, when Obama, now 47, was a child. Some of the organization's own members died in a New York City residence when a bomb detonated prematurely. Ayers was not convicted of any crime in connection with the group's attacks, which Obama has denounced.

In Wednesday's final presidential debate, McCain himself said of Ayers, "I don't care about an old washed-up terrorist." But his campaign has continued to aggressively press the association of Ayers with Obama, and spokesman Rick Gorka defended the emphasis on Ayers.

"When you have a candidate who is as inexperienced and naive as Barack Obama, you have to look at who his associates are," Gorka said.

Reid pointed to McCain's own statements after the 2000 Republican presidential primary to paint the Republican as a hypocrite. In that race, McCain was the subject of character-attack phone calls and said he would never stoop the kinds of tactics that were used to smear him.

Reid said, "I call upon John McCain, a person whose reputation is on the line here. He should stop this."

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the McCain campaign was trying to distract voters from more important matters like the economy.

"This is the politics of desperation, to do or say anything that would put doubt in the minds of the American people," she said.

Republicans, Berkley said, are harping on negative themes because they have no fresh ideas to attract voters.

In addition to the phone calls, the Nevada Republican Party has been mailing fliers to local voters that call Ayers "Terrorist. Radical. Friend of Obama" and warn, "Barack Obama. Not Who You Think He Is."

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.