RACE HAS moved into the foreground of the presidential campaign with a storm over remarks by civil rights icon John Lewis comparing John McCain and Sarah Palin to the segregationist politician George Wallace, writes Denis Staunton, Washington Correspondent
Mr Lewis, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, said that ugly scenes at McCain/Palin rallies in recent weeks reminded him of Wallace's campaigns in Alabama during the 1960s.
"Senator McCain and Governor Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse," Mr Lewis said in a prepared statement on Saturday.
"George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama."
Mr McCain condemned Mr Lewis's statement as "a character attack against Governor Sarah Palin and me that is shocking and beyond the pale" and called on Barack Obama to repudiate it.
"The notion that legitimate criticism of Senator Obama's record and positions could be compared to governor George Wallace, his segregationist policies and the violence he provoked is unacceptable and has no place in this campaign," Mr McCain said.
"I am saddened that John Lewis, a man I've always admired, would make such a brazen and baseless attack on my character and the character of the thousands of hardworking Americans who come to our events to cheer for the kind of reform that will put America on the right track."
Mr Obama's campaign said the Democrat did not believe Mr McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to Wallace or his segregationist policies, but added that Mr Lewis "was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked".
At a town hall meeting in Minnesota on Friday, Mr McCain remonstrated with a supporter who described Mr Obama as "an Arab", saying his opponent was "a decent, family man" with whom he disagreed on policy issues.
Crowds at other Republican rallies have become rowdy in recent days, with some in the audience greeting the mention of Mr Obama's name with cries of "terrorist", "traitor" and on one occasion, "Kill him!"
At a McCain event in Iowa on Saturday a pastor delivered an invocation suggesting that Mr Obama represented a threat to Christianity.
"I also would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god - whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah - that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons," Arnold Conrad said.
"And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honour your own name with all that happens between now and election day."
The McCain campaign has played down the significance of a report approved unanimously by a bipartisan group of Alaska legislators on Friday that found that Ms Palin abused her power as governor by pushing for her former brother-in-law to be fired from the state police force.
The report found that Mrs Palin violated the Alaska's executive branch ethics act, which says that "each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust".
Investigator Steve Branchflower concluded that Mrs Palin's family feud with her former brother-in-law, state trooper Mike Wooten, wasn't the only reason she sacked public safety commissioner Walter Monegan. But Mr Branchflower said Mrs Palin acted unlawfully by failing to rein in her husband's efforts to use the governor's office to contact state employees in his attempts to have Mr Wooten fired.
The McCain campaign claimed that the report showed that Ms Palin was within her rights in firing Mr Monegan but added that the investigation was politically motivated: "The report also illustrates what we've known all along: this was a partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behaviour."