McCain took the mic from a woman who called Obama an \"Arab.\" McCain: Obama not an Arab, crowd boos

Fearing the raw and at times angry emotions of his supporters may damage his campaign, John McCain on Friday urged them to tone down their increasingly personal denunciations of Barack Obama, including one woman who said she had heard that the Democrat was "an Arab."

Each time he tried to cool the crowd, he was rewarded with a round of boos.


"I have to tell you. Sen. Obama is a decent person and a person you don’t have to be scared of as president of the United States," McCain told a supporter at a town hall meeting in Minnesota who said he was “scared” of the prospect of an Obama presidency and of who the Democrat would appoint to the Supreme Court.

“Come on, John!” one audience member yelled out as the Republican crowd expressed dismay at their nominee. Others yelled "liar," and "terrorist," referring to Obama.

McCain passed his wireless microphone to one woman who said, "I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not uh — he's an Arab. He's not — " before McCain retook the microphone and replied:

"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]."

The public display of fear and unease over Obama comes at the end of a week in which other Republicans at McCain and Sarah Palin events expressed similar frustrations, a product of exasperation at the prospect of the Illinois senator becoming president and their own nominee not doing enough to prevent it.

McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, sought to tamp down concerns about the audience outbursts on a conference call earlier Friday, saying they were not a “big deal.”

But that was before the highly-charged meeting in a high school gymnasium in Lakeville, Minn., Friday night.

In addition to the man who said he feared Obama as president, another predicted the Democrat would “lead the country to socialism.”

“The time has come and the Bible tells us you speak the truth and that the truth sets you free,” the man added.

Yet another voter implored McCain in plain terms: "The people here in Minnesota want to see a real fight."

McCain promised the audience he wouldn’t back down — but again sought to tamp down emotions.

"We want to fight, and I will fight," McCain said. "But I will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments, and I will respect him."

At which point he was booed again.

"I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he added over the jeers. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

The anger is plainly worrying McCain and his campaign. Already viewed with skepticism by the conservative base, they don’t want to throw a proverbial wet blanket over the enthusiasm of the worker bees of the party. But they also fear a backlash from less partisan — and still undecided — voters seeing clips of the angry activists on TV and online.

“He’s not going to stand there while somebody says something he disagrees with and not make his view known,” Brian Rogers, a McCain spokesman, said after the Minnesota event. “He’s never been afraid to get boos from his own audience. That’s always been John McCain’s thing.”

But Rogers said the campaign would continue its own increasingly character-based line of assault.

“There are legitimate questions about Barack Obama. We’re going to raise them and do that compellingly. But when people go over the line in John McCain’s opinion he’ll be open and honest about it.”

Asked whether some of the shots McCain and Palin have taken against Obama on the stump and in TV ads may be contributing to the raw emotions, Rogers said such sentiments were “garbage.”

“The idea that we should not question Obama’s record and readiness to be president is offensive to democracy,” he said.

McCain did continue the campaign's hit on Obama's association with former Weather Underground founder William Ayers, something the Republican’s campaign put in a TV ad for the first time Friday. McCain Friday again called Ayers an "an unrepentant terrorist," adding that "Sen. Obama said that Mr. Ayers was a guy in the neighborhood when in reality, Sen. Obama's political career was launched in Mr. Ayers' living room."

Obama, spending the day in Ohio, suggested McCain was responsible for the anger on display at McCain events.

“It’s easy to rile up a crowd by stoking anger and division,” Obama said in Chillicothe, Ohio.

“But that’s not what we need right now in the United States. The American people aren’t looking for someone who can divide this country — they’re looking for someone who will lead it.”

Obama is known for his quick rebuttals, for disputing Republican critics by name on the campaign trail within hours of absorbing what he views as an unfair rhetorical blow. But he has yet to use the powerful platform of his daily stump speech to directly rebut the now-dominant line of Republican attack: Obama's association with 1960s-era radical Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground involved in domestic bombings. McCain once again addressed the Ayers issue Friday even as he was tamping down other attacks.

The closest Obama has come was a bank shot on Friday: “Even as we face the most serious economic crisis of our time, even as you are worried about keeping your jobs or paying your bills or staying in your homes, my opponent’s campaign announced last week that they plan to ‘turn the page’ on the discussion about our economy so they can spend the final weeks of this election attacking me instead.”

Mostly, Obama has pursued a front-runner's course of leaving the more direct responses to others, including Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, who told an audience Friday in Springfield, Mo., that McCain is trying to “take the lowest road to the highest office in America.” The Obama camp launched a media campaign earlier this week reminding voters of McCain's involvement with the savings and loan scandal known as the Keating Five, and have pressed surrogates to play up McCain's attempts to shift the campaign narrative away from the economy.

Obama aides say they don't see the Ayers attack registering with most voters, and pointed to a Fox News poll released Friday that found only a third of voters saying they'd be less likely to support Obama knowing the connection. Sixty-one percent said it would have no effect on their vote. The poll of 900 registered voters was conducted Oct. 8-9.

Carrie Budoff Brown contributed to this report.