'Race card' played, says McCain team

Published on Thursday 31 July 2008 22:16

US REPUBLICAN presidential candidate John McCain's campaign accused Democratic rival Barack Obama yesterday of playing "the race card" for the way Mr Obama tried to deflect a negative campaign advert from Mr McCain.

The campaign for the 4 November election has taken a negative turn this week after the McCain camp issued a television advertisement on Wednesday that called Mr Obama a celebrity akin to star-crossed US celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

In response, Mr Obama said Mr McCain was trying to scare voters away from him.

"So what they're saying is, 'Well, we know we're not very good but you can't risk electing Obama. You know, he's new, he doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency. He's got a funny name.' I mean, that's basically the argument – he's too risky," Mr Obama said in Missouri.

Mr Obama, whose father was Kenyan, would be the first black US president.

"Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong," the McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said.

The McCain side also defended the "Celeb" television ad, which generated much publicity, and said the Obama camp was overreacting.

"It celebrates the excitement that he has generated, that is certainly more akin to the excitement that a celebrity generates than a normal politician," a McCain senior adviser, Nicolle Wallace said on MSNBC.

But Mr Obama's adviser, Robert Gibbs said on NBC's Today show that Mr McCain is "running an increasingly dishonorable campaign."

"The McCain campaign has very clearly decided that the only way to win this election is to become very personal and very negative. We believe that people will see that as nothing more than the same old politics and the same old policies of the last eight years," he said.

Both candidates vying to succeed President George Bush have said in the past they planned to run campaigns that would stay away from the mud-slinging that has marked some recent presidential contests.