McCain campaign turns desperate, continues to focus on Obama-Ayers link
9 Oct 2008, 1608 Hrs

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Washington/Indianapolis, Oct.9 The McCain campaign is getting increasingly desperate in its bid to catch up with Barack Obama, so much so, that it continues to harp on Obama?s links with William Ayers, a radical of the 1970s.

The latest salvo from the Republican camp is a startling statement from John Murtagh, a Yonkers city councilman and GOP state Senate candidate.

Murtagh refers to a 1970 firebombing of his family's upper Manhattan home, when his father, New York State Supreme Court Justice John Murtagh, was presiding at a trial of Black Panther radicals.

The Weather Underground was suspected in the attack, although no one was caught.

"Barack Obama may have been a child when William Ayers was plotting attacks against U.S. targets - but I was one of those targets," Murtagh said in the statement.

Murtagh was 9 at the time; Obama was 8.

"Barack Obama's friend tried to kill my family," the New York Daily News quotes him, as concluding. Obama fired back on ABC News: "Why don't we just clear it up right now: The notion that somehow [Ayers] has been involved in my campaign, that he is an adviser of mine, that ... I've 'palled around with a terrorist,' all these statements are made simply to try to score cheap political points."

Obama has had only sporadic associations with Ayers, a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, since meeting him in the 1990s. cCain's strategy is loaded with risk, an ex-aide said.

At Tuesday's debate, McCain never mentioned Ayers, after days of jabbing at him. He focused on the economy, including his 300 billion dollar plan to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Obama suggested McCain didn't have the chutzpah bring it up face-to-face. "I am surprised that, you know, we've been seeing some pretty over-the-top attacks coming out of the McCain campaign over the last several days, that he wasn't willing to say it to my face" Obama said. (ANI)