Audiences Cool Down When Candidates Don’t Focus on Ayers

BLUE BELL, Pa. — Last week, it seemed as if every rally featuring Sen. John McCain or Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was marred by somebody in the audience yelling out something awful about Sen. Barack Obama.

But at the three rallies I’ve attended this week — one a joint appearance of McCain and Palin, the others with McCain solo — no audience member called out “Terrorist,” “Kill him” or anything close to the vile shout-outs of last week.

What’s the difference?

The most obvious is that neither McCain nor Palin have been talking about former Weatherman William Ayers this week.

The Obama-as-terrorist references have not disappeared entirely from McCain events, though. Yesterday, someone placed a sign featuring Obama’s photo next to Osama bin Laden outside the venue of a McCain event at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, N.C.

And at the McCain-Palin rally in Virginia Beach earlier in the day, a pair of supporters held up signs that read “Obama Bin Lyin.’”

But we surely have not heard the end of Ayers.

McCain’s advertising is still heavily focused on Obama’s ties to the former radical, and McCain today suggested he may bring up Ayers during the third presidential debate Wednesday.

If he does, McCain could open himself up to more of the negative press he sought to squelch this week.