At rally, Palin upholds GOP attack on ACORN

The veep candidate is popular with evangelicals.

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 the Association of Community Organizations 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.”

Palin said Obama’s ties with ACORN run much deeper than he has indicated.

“This is not mean-spirited, it is not negative campaigning to call someone on the record and on their associations,” Palin said. “Senator Obama won’t tell you the full truth about his tax increases, and now he’s kind of fuzzying up his connections to ACORN.”

She said besides representing ACORN, he had been involved in training of its staff and also is supported by the group.

“All of this would be a lot of baggage to drag into the Oval Office,” Palin said.

An Obama campaign spokesman rejected the claim of close ties.

“We have not worked with ACORN at all in the general election,” spokesman Tommy Vietor said. “Rather than make these false, desperate attacks, the McCain-Palin campaign should release an economic plan that actually helps the middle class instead of giving billions in tax cuts to big corporations.”

With the crowd chanting “Joe! Joe! Joe!” Palin also referred to Samuel J. 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 — Senator 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.

He said Palin is popular in the area, including with evangelical Christian voters who were key Bush supporters in the last presidential election.