Race moves into U.S. campaign spotlight

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Race has moved into the spotlight of the U.S. presidential race as Sen. John McCain's campaign accused his Democratic Party opponent of playing the "race card."

Aides to McCain, R-Ariz., and the likely Republican Party presidential candidate said the campaign was forced to raise the race issue after comments made by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., during a campaign swing in Missouri, The Washington Post reported Friday.

Obama said Republicans would employ scare tactics by playing up Obama's "funny name" and the fact that "he doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills."

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

Obama strategist Robert Gibbs responded, "Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue but he does believe they're using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign ... ."

Steve Schmidt, who runs the McCain's day-to-day operations, said the campaign was forced to broach the subject because it saw the fallout during the Democratic primary when Obama supporters accused former U.S. President Bill Clinton of racial insensitivity, The New York Times reported.

"The McCain campaign was compelled to respond to this outrageous attack because we will not allow John McCain to be smeared by Senator Obama as a racist for offering legitimate criticism," Schmidt told the Times. "We have waited for months with a sick feeling knowing this moment would come because we watched it incur with President Clinton."