Michigan county singled out for attack ads

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich., Sept. 24 (UPI) -- A political action committee has targeted a county in the battleground state of Michigan for attack ads against Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Hundreds of times in the past three weeks, cable television viewers in Macomb County have been the exclusive audience for ads linking Obama to former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Both Kilpatrick and Wright are black while the population in Macomb County is predominantly white.

The Times says the ads were produced by the conservative Washington group Freedom's Defense Fund formed four years ago.

"We feel Obama can't win the presidency without Michigan and he can't win Michigan without Macomb," says Michael Centanni, chairman of the fund.

Todd Zirkle, the group's executive director, says race has "zero" to do with the spots and future ads will tie Obama to two white men, Weather Underground founder Bill Ayers and jailed Chicago developer Antoin Rezko.