McCain has Berlin moment too
-- in little Berlins

[July 24, 2008]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- John McCain can be a Berliner, too.

The Republican National Committee decided to have a little fun with Barack Obama's widely anticipated speech Thursday at Berlin's Victory Column. It is airing anti-Obama ads in Berlin's namesakes in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and New Hampshire.

Not a lot of audience reach in these tiny radio markets, but certainly a poke in the ribs to Obama.

The 60-second ad accuses Obama of voting against allocating money for military troops.

"When it came time to act, he voted against critical resources: no to individual body armor, no to helicopters, no to ammunition, no to aircraft," the ad states.

The reference is to Obama's vote on May 24, 2007, against a $120 billion appropriation, most of it for troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama had voted for a similar bill weeks earlier that required the administration to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by Oct. 1, 2007. That bill passed, but President Bush vetoed it. The legislation that replaced it contained no withdrawal language and it passed 80-14 with Obama among the dissenters.

At the time of that vote, Obama issued a statement: "After he vetoed a plan that would have funded the troops and begun to bring them home, this bill represents more of his stubborn refusal to address his failed policy. We should not give the President a blank check to continue down this same, disastrous path."

Obama has otherwise voted for every spending bill for troops in war zones.

"As a veteran and someone who has always put the public interest first, John McCain stood by our troops," McCain's ad says. "If Obama can't rise above politics to support our soldiers in a time of war, then how can he claim to have the strength to change the way Washington works? John McCain is ready to lead. Barack Obama is not."

McCain aired a similar message on a television ad last week, but that ad has received limited airplay.

The Obama campaign denounced the ad as a "distasteful and misleading attack."

"There are honest differences between Sen. Obama's position on Iraq and Sen. McCain's, but there's no question that both support our troops," Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said in a statement. "Under the RNC's definition, John McCain would have also chosen politics over our military when he urged George Bush to veto funding for the troops, and we know that's not the case."

Separately, Obama began broadcasting a new Spanish language radio ad in Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada that seeks to connect with Latino and Hispanic voters by highlighting his middle-class roots and work on jobs-related issues.

"He grew up without a father raised by his mother with the support of his grandparents," the ad's announcer stats. "Through student loans and hard work, he graduated from college."

The ad refers to his work as a community organizer in Chicago. It also says that while a state senator in Illinois, "he passed a law that helped reduce the welfare rolls by over 80 percent by helping families to secure jobs." Obama did not single-handedly "pass" the law, but he was one of a handful of original sponsors of legislation that adopted Clinton-era federal requirements that welfare recipients obtain work and that set time limits on benefits.

An early script of the Obama ad that the campaign released erroneously Wednesday had tried to make a greater connection with Hispanic voters by stating that Obama's father, originally from Kenya, "was an immigrant." That reference was dropped in the final ad. Obama's father divorced his mother when Obama was two years old.

Hispanic and Latino voters generally tilt Democratic and polls show Obama well ahead of McCain among that voting bloc. Hispanic voters have become especially important this election because states with sizable Hispanic populations, such as Colorado, Florida, New Mexico and Nevada are presidential battlegrounds.

McCain has run Spanish language ads as well. He has aired ads in Nevada and New Mexico promoting his economic plans. Another featured his Naval Academy roommate Frank Gamboa who touted McCain's work on behalf of Hispanics and stated, without naming Obama, that "the other candidate has just discovered the importance of the Hispanic vote."

McCain has also run a Spanish language radio ad in Florida that promoted his support of the Colombian Free Trade Agreement.

[Associated Press; By JIM KUHNHENN]

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