McCain campaign accuses Obama of playing race card

Last Updated: Thursday, July 31, 2008 | 2:14 PM ET

CBC News

The campaign of John McCain accused Barack Obama of playing the race card when he said Republicans would try to scare voters away by saying the Democratic presidential candidate "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

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

The accusation follows comments made by Obama while he was campaigning in Missouri on Wednesday.

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, 'He's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name,' you know, 'He doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills.'"

Obama didn't elaborate on how McCain would distinguish him from the other presidents on the U.S. currency, all white men who for the most part were much older than Obama when elected.

But Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said the candidate was not referring to race.

"What Barack Obama was talking about was that he didn't get here after spending decades in Washington," Gibbs said. "There is nothing more to this than the fact that he was describing that he was new to the political scene. He was referring to the fact that he didn't come into the race with the history of others. It is not about race."

The latest campaign salvo follows the Obama campaign's condemnation of a television ad, released by the McCain campaign, criticizing Obama's "celebrity" status.

The video intersperses scenes of Obama's speech in Berlin last week to thousands of people with pictures of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

"He's the biggest celebrity in the world, but is he ready to lead?" the voiceover asks in the ad.

Obama's campaign quickly responded with a commercial of its own, dismissing McCain's complaints as "baloney" and "baseless."