Republican vice-presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin (centre), signs autographs after a campaign speech yesterday morning in Clearwater, Florida. - AP
WASHINGTON (AP):
Mudslinging initiated on the weekend by Repu-blican John McCain's campaign gathered intensity in the presidential race yesterday as Democrat Barack Obama resurrected his opponent's links to a financial scandal two decades ago.
The heightened attacks set a more hostile tone for the race ahead of today's presidential debate, the second of three.
Obama, reacting to Republican allegations that he "palled around" with a 1960s radical, fired back with a web video about McCain's role in the Keating Five savings and loan debacle early in the Arizona senator's Senate career. His role in that scandal earned him a rebuke for poor judgement from Senate colleagues.
Web 'documentary'
The Obama campaign was emailing a 13-minute web "documentary" about McCain's involvement with convicted thrift owner Charles Keating, calling the episode "a window into McCain's economic past, present and future."
With a grave financial crisis dragging the 72-year-old Republican lower in the polls with just four weeks remaining until the November 4 election, the McCain campaign had telegraphed its intention to turn the screws on Obama and declared it wanted to turn the page on the economic turmoil.
Yesterday, Obama told reporters McCain was not paying enough attention to the economic crisis gripping the country, emphasising that he could not "imagine anything more important to talk about" than Americans losing their jobs, health care and homes.
In an unusually angry retort, McCain sought to divert attention from his newly aggressive strategy by claiming that Obama "never answers the serious and legitimate questions he has been asked."
Questioning record
Speaking in Albuquerque, New Mexico, McCain said his opponent had resorted to calling the Arizona senator a liar every time his record was questioned.
"Let me reply in the plainest terms I know. I don't need lessons about telling the truth to American people. And were I ever to need any improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn't seek advice from a Chicago politician," McCain said in remarks released by his campaign.
An aide to McCain recently said his campaign would like to shift the presidential race's focus away from the economy, which has been a better issue for Democrats than Republicans. Since then, McCain's running mate Alaska Gov Sarah Palin has been questioning Obama's character based on his association with an incendiary pastor and a 1960s radical turned college professor.
McCain continues to discuss economic conditions, but Obama says he needs to offer better and more specific remedies.
The fierce skirmishing broke out after Palin claimed during appearances on the weekend that Obama sees America as so imperfect "that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country," a reference to 1960s-era radical Bill Ayers.
Obama and Ayers do not know each other well although they live in the same Chicago neighbourhood, have served on a charity board together and Ayers hosted a meet-the-candidate event when Obama first ran for state office in the mid-1990s.
Expanded attack on obama
Yesterday, Palin expanded her attack on Obama's character to include his relationship with an incendiary former pastor as well as his ties to Ayers.
In the process, Palin toned down her description of the Obama-Ayers relationship after her weekend remarks were criticised as exaggerated, but at the same time she embarked on a discussion of Obama's relationship with his former pastor, the Rev Jeremiah A. Wright Jr, which Republican presidential candidate John McCain had signalled he did not want to be a part of his campaign.
