Obama's campaign denied the candidate suggested any such thing. "Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue," said spokesman Bill Burton. "But he does believe they're using the same low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in the campaign."
Privately, campaign aides said Obama's comments alluded to falsehoods widely spread on the Internet and to racial comments that have plagued his campaign from the outset.
Obama has made similar remarks about his "otherness" in the past; during his 2004 Senate campaign, he made forays into rural Illinois and mocked his name with references to "yo' mama."
Other Democrats flatly accused McCain of using race as an issue to undercut Obama.
"He learned a lot in South Carolina in 2000, apparently not all of it good," said Dick Harpootlian, the former Democratic chairman in the state, which has a long history of racially tinged politics. McCain lost the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary -- and his first shot at the presidency -- in part because of a whispering campaign that accused him of fathering an illegitimate black child.
"What they did to McCain in 2000 is what McCain's trying to do to Barack Obama in 2008," Harpootlian said.
Schmidt rejected the assertion as "totally, totally without merit," adding that "the injection of this issue into this race was done by the Obama campaign. We responded to it."
In the hard-fought Democratic primaries between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, race flickered on and off as an issue. Obama supporters took umbrage on several occasions at remarks uttered by Clinton surrogates. Former President Clinton, in turn, complained at one point that Obama had "played the race card on me" -- a comment that McCain echoed Thursday.
At a town hall meeting in Racine, the Republican hopeful was asked about the growing nastiness of the campaign.
A young woman reminded McCain that he had repeatedly promised not to sling mud.
"But recently, especially last week with Obama in Europe, it seemed like there were a lot of campaign ads you put out that were doing that," said the woman, who did not give her name. "And the one yesterday comparing him to Paris Hilton and Britney. I was like, OK. . . . It seems to Americans like me you may have flip-flopped."
McCain responded that "there are differences and we are drawing those differences."
"I'm proud of the campaign we have run. I'm proud of the issues we have been trying to address to the American people," McCain said. "We're proud of that commercial."
As events have it, McCain is set to appear before a largely black audience today when he delivers the keynote address at the Urban League's national convention in Florida.
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mark.barabak@latimes.com
nicholas.riccardi@ latimes.com
Barabak reported from San Francisco and Riccardi from Wisconsin. Times staff writer Stephen Braun in Iowa contributed to this report.
