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Palin attacks Obama as too liberal in N.C. appearance
She also questions his associations with former radical
AP Photo
Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican nominee for vice president, made a campaign appearance at East Carolina University in Greenville with Sens. Richard Burr and Elizabeth Dole, and Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, who is running for governor.
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Published: October 8, 2008
GREENVILLE
Sarah Palin, the Republican nominee for vice president, fired a string of attacks against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during a visit to Eastern North Carolina last night.
It was the first time that either member of the Republican ticket campaigned in North Carolina since the party's national convention.
Obama, in contrast, has visited the state repeatedly, including three times in the past month.
In a fiery 30-minute speech, less than two hours before John McCain and Obama met for a debate in Nashville, Palin tried to portray Obama as too liberal for North Carolina voters, and she repeatedly said that his mantra of change is hollow.
"There's a pattern here, and it's a left-wing agenda that's packaged and goodied up to look like mainstream policies," she said.
Palin, the governor of Alaska, also repeated a line of attack that she has frequently made from the stump in recent days: assailing Obama for his previous associations with William Ayers, the founder of a radical 1960s group that committed acts of domestic terrorism.
Early in Obama's political career in Chicago, Obama and Ayers (who by then was an education professor) occasionally crossed paths. For instance, the two served together on a charitable board, and Ayers was the host of a coffee in support of Obama's first run for office.
Obama's campaign said that Obama was not initially aware of Ayers' past, and Obama has repudiated the anti-Vietnam War bombings carried out by Ayers' group, the Weathermen.
"He didn't know that he launched his political career in the living rooms of a domestic terrorist, until he did know?" Palin said last night. "The story just keeps on changing, and the claims keep getting more curious."
Palin spoke at Minges Coliseum on the campus of East Carolina University. A crowd of about 8,000 waved gold and purple pom-poms (the school's colors) and occasionally broke into chants of "No-bama!"
Republicans are trying to hold on to North Carolina, a state that Obama is aggressively trying to flip into his column. No Democratic presidential candidate has won North Carolina since 1976, when Jimmy Carter did it.
An average of results from five recent polls in North Carolina shows McCain and Obama in a dead heat in the state.
Obama's wife, Michelle Obama, campaigned in Jacksonville yesterday afternoon.
At last night's rally in Greenville, both U.S. senators from North Carolina, Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr, spoke before Palin did. So did Pat McCrory, the mayor of Charlotte who is the Republican candidate for governor.
In interviews before the rally, McCrory and Dole praised Palin -- who before she became governor was the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska -- as a gutsy pick by McCain.
"I like the choice because she's a mayor," McCrory said. "It takes a mayor to clean up government. It doesn't matter what size a town you're mayor of. There's no place to hide."
Dole, who is facing a tough re-election battle, said she admires Palin's independence.
"She's stepped right into the national spotlight and done a beautiful job," Dole said.
Palin is scheduled to return to North Carolina on Oct. 16 for a fundraiser in Greensboro.
■ James Romoser can be reached at 919-210-6794 or at jromoser@wsjournal.com.
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