McCain backers keep hitting Obama on Ayers

Two prominent backers of Republican presidential nominee John McCain kept up the attack Sunday on Democratic rival Barack Obama for his ties to Weather Underground member William Ayers.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) and Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) said on ABC’s “This Week” that the association with Ayers, host of a1995 event for Obama’s campaign for state senate, raised questions about Obama’s trustworthiness.

{mosads}“It goes to the issue of what kind of judgment would allow an unrepentant domestic terrorist to host a political event for you in his home, in the terrorist’s home,” Pawlenty said.

The governor’s criticism reflects the McCain campaign’s new, even more aggressive tone. With Sen. McCain (Ariz.) trailing in polls just a month before the election, Republicans have ramped up their criticism of Sen. Obama’s (Ill.) character. On Saturday, GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin said Obama has been “palling around with terrorists,” a clear reference to Ayers, whose group set off bombs in the Pentagon and the Capitol in the early 1970s.

Obama’s campaign said the candidate does not share Ayers’s political views and has not spoken with him since 2005. The campaign has also noted that Obama was a child when the Weathermen were active. Ayers now serves as a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has been an active member of Chicago charity boards.

But Martinez on Sunday said the Ayers connection calls into question Obama’s decisions as an adult running a political campaign.

“I think the important part is whether they’re truthful charges or not,” Martinez said.

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown (Ohio) responded that McCain’s new approach would not work because voters care more about economic issues. Brown also previewed the Obama campaign’s new offensive against McCain, also reflected in a new campaign ad, that describes the Republican as “erratic in a crisis.”

“Well, you have seen a 26-year Senate veteran morph into an angry, desperate candidate in the last few weeks, especially in the last few days,” Brown said on “This Week.”

Obama pulled ahead of McCain in polls over the past two weeks as mortgage and financial firms failed. Martinez, a backer of McCain since January’s Florida GOP primary, acknowledged that the economic focus has not helped McCain.

“Well, look, for sure, the economy hurt the McCain campaign in Florida,” Martinez said.

However, he added that the race is “far from being over.”

Meantime, campaign surrogates also sparred on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.), continuing a line of attack McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin introduced during a stump speech Saturday, said that Obama had “talked down about America” during his trip to Germany.

“We expect someone to stand up for America and to realize that America is a force for good in the world and has been for a century,” Wilson said.

The lawmaker, who lost a race to replace Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) in the Senate, said Obama, “has kind of a negative view of America in the world.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) dismissed the criticism as an effort by a faltering campaign to tear down the trust and credibility of his opponent. She said Obama has “gained a great deal of credibility and trust of the American people.”

“He’s leading in the polls. He’s leading in most of the battleground states. And this is going to be a month, I think, of character assassination,” Feinstein said, adding, “And you know, it’s a hard thing for me to listen to this when you know the major problems this nation faces.”

Discussing the financial crisis and the Wall Street bailout Congress passed this week, House Minority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) defended McCain’s role in the negotiations as “very purposeful” and “selfless.”

After the bailout package failed a House floor vote Monday, Blunt said McCain was in contact with him everyday “about who he could call, who he could talk to.”

But Feinstein said Obama was resolute and steady during the debate over the bailout, in contrast to McCain who she described as being "very erratic in how he behaved," suspending his campaign, initially backing out of the debate, and parachuting into sensitive negotiations ongoing on Capitol Hill.