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| Republican vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, speaks at a campaign stop in Noblesville, Friday, Oct. 17, 2008. |
WEST CHESTER, Ohio (AP) -- Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Friday kept up the Republican ticket's attack on a community activist group that registers voters and cited an Ohio plumber's encounter with Democrat Barack Obama as indicative of his tax policies.
Campaigning in one of the swing state's conservative strongholds, Palin said Obama hasn't been forthcoming about his ties to ACORN, the Association of Community Activists for Reform Now. The group faces allegations of voter registration fraud in Ohio and other states.
Obama has said he doesn't have any significant links to the group.
"You deserve to know," Palin told thousands surrounding her stage in a suburban community park. "This group needs to learn that you here in Ohio won't let them turn the Buckeye State into the Acorn State."
The FBI is investigating whether ACORN helped foster voter registration fraud around the nation before the presidential election, according to senior law enforcement officials who spoke to the Associated Press Thursday.
The Obama campaign on Friday rejected claims of any ties to the group.
"They are not...an agent of this campaign, they did not perform registration services for this campaign," Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer said.
In a letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on Friday, Bauer asked that any investigation into registration irregularities be turned over to a special prosecutor currently investigating partisan political firings of U.S. attorneys nearly two years ago.
"It is highly likely that the very sort of politically motivated conduct identified in the Department's investigation to date, necessitating the appointment of a special prosecutor, is repeating itself, and for the same reason: unwarranted and politically motivated intervention in the upcoming election," Bauer wrote.
In Ohio, with the crowd chanting "Joe! Joe! Joe!" Palin also referred to Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber repeatedly cited by McCain in Wednesday night's presidential debate as an example of a hardworking American concerned that Obama will raise his taxes.
The Toledo-area man, who doesn't have a plumber's license and owes the state back taxes, would receive a tax cut under the plan offered by Obama. Still, Palin argued that Wurzelbacher showed how the Democrat's ideas would have damaging consequences.
"We've really got to hand it to Joe," Palin said. "Somehow he got Barack Obama to finally state his intentions in plain language - Sen. Obama said he wants to spread the wealth and he wants government to take your money and decide how to best redistribute it."
After the crowd booed, Palin added: "Joe suggested that sounded a little bit like socialism. Whatever you call it, I call it bad medicine for an ailing economy."
Scott Owens, Butler County chairman for the McCain campaign, said 15,000 tickets to the event were handed out and estimated that the crowd was near that number.
