http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/presidentialrace/2008283881_robo19.htmlMcCain "robo calls" draw bipartisan fire
By The Associated Press and The New York Times
The Seattle Times editorial board offers recommendations for selected races and ballot measures on the Nov. 4 ballot.
Senators in opposing political parties have asked Republican presidential candidate John McCain to stop automated telephone attacks on Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, made separate appeals to McCain on Friday. Collins faces a tough race for re-election and serves as a co-chairwoman of his Maine campaign.
"These kind of tactics have no place in Maine politics," Collins spokesman Kevin Kelley said. "Sen. Collins urges the McCain campaign to stop these calls immediately."
Voters in at least 10 closely contested states are receiving hundreds of thousands of the automated, or "robo," calls — uniformly negative and sometimes misleading.
McCain has belittled such calls in the past: In the 2000 primaries, he was a target of misleading calls that included innuendo about his family, and blamed them in part for his loss to George W. Bush. In January, McCain described those calls as "scurrilous stuff."