Obama fundraising team uses Rove remark

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s (Ill.) campaign hopes that Karl Rove can help it raise some money. 

An Obama campaign e-mail to supporters featured the GOP operative’s statement that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wasn’t being completely truthful in attacks on the Democratic candidate.

{mosads}“John McCain is running the most negative and dishonest campaign in modern presidential history," campaign manager David Plouffe wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "He has demonstrated that he'd rather lose his integrity than lose this election. It's right out of the Bush-Rove playbook. Unfortunately, as Karl Rove knows better than anyone, these shameful tactics have worked in the past."

Rove had said on Fox News Sunday that McCain “has gone, in some of his ads, one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test.”

Rove’s remark came after both Obama and media fact-checkers have criticized McCain for exaggerating Palin’s record on earmarks, the Illinois senator’s votes on education and the size of the crowd at a McCain campaign rally. Rove also knocked Obama during the show, saying that the Democrat’s “lipstick on a pig” remark was aimed at Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R).

In the e-mail, Plouffe asked supporters to donate money to help Obama combat McCain's attacks.

Obama’s campaign has increased its fundraising efforts recently. It announced Sunday that it raised $66 million in August, its biggest single-month haul of the campaign. The Democrat is on pace to raise more money privately than the $84 million in public funds that McCain can spend. By opting out of the public finance system, Obama will be able to raise and spend an unlimited amount of money for the final two months of the campaign.

Though McCain’s campaign can’t accept any more private contributions because of public finance limits, it will benefit from money raised by the Republican National Committee, which has about $94 million in cash on hand, the Associated Press reported.