by Samara Kalk Derby

The John McCain-Sarah Palin presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee began a negative robo call campaign Thursday attempting to strengthen a tenuous link between Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama and former radical Bill Ayers.

The call, which has been received locally, goes like this: "Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC, You need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home, and killed Americans."

It continues: "Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country."

The attack attempts to switch the focus from the real issue -- the economy, says the state Obama camp.

"McCain's campaign has admitted that the economy is a losing issue for them, so he's chosen to launch dishonorable and dishonest attacks like this," said Obama Campaign for Change Wisconsin spokesman Matt Lehrich.

"No amount of scare tactics and false attacks will hide the fact that John McCain can't defend the fact that he's voted with George Bush's disastrous policies 90 percent of the time and will continue the same Bush-McCain economic policies American families can't afford," Lehrich said.

Meanwhile, Kirsten Kukowski, communications director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, defended the auto calls.

"We're calling into question Barack Obama's judgment on who he surrounds himself with, people like Bill Ayers and Rev. (Jeremiah) Wright, because the voters need to know that he is associating himself with some people who have questionable backgrounds, have said and done questionable things," she said.

His associations are important because if Obama does win on Nov. 4 people should wonder who he is going to surround himself with in the Oval Office, "who he's going to have advising him, who's going to be in his ear," Kukowski said.

"We're making sure that the voters have the information that they need to make the right decision in November," she said.

Kukowski said it is her understanding that the calls are going out statewide.

The Huffington Post Web site [1] is reporting that its received dozens of e-mails from voters who have either received the call or gotten a voice mail with a recording. Reports have come in from Wisconsin as well as Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Missouri, North Carolina, Florida, Texas and Maine.

The phone messages come one day after a presidential debate in which McCain said he didn't care about an "old washed-up terrorist."

Still, Obama calmly described his relationship with Ayers, the one-time Weather Underground leader, who Obama said has become the centerpiece of McCain's campaign over the last two or three weeks.

"This has been their primary focus," Obama said during the debate Wednesday night. "So let's get the record straight. Bill Ayers is a professor of education in Chicago.

"Forty years ago, when I was 8-years-old, he engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group. I have roundly condemned those acts. Ten years ago he served and I served on a school reform board that was funded by one of Ronald Reagan's former ambassadors and close friends, Mr. Annenberg.

"Other members on that board were the presidents of the University of Illinois, the president of Northwestern University, who happens to be a Republican, the president of The Chicago Tribune, a Republican-leaning newspaper.

"Mr. Ayers is not involved in my campaign. He has never been involved in this campaign. And he will not advise me in the White House. So that's Mr. Ayers."