McCain camp pushes back on Buchanan claims
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Published: 09/01/2008
The McCain campaign pushed back hard against claims by Democrats that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the vice presidential nominee, once associated with Pat Buchanan.
"Governor Palin has never worked for any effort to elect Pat Buchanan -- that assertion is completely false," Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), told ABC this weekend.
On Friday, the Democratic Party issued a release quoting U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) as saying that McCain's pick was a "direct affront to all Jewish Americans" because of reports of Palin's past associations with Buchanan, who has long postulated that the pro-Israel lobby is inordinately influential and that Hitler might have been contained through peaceful means.
Wexler's comments appear based on a 1999 report that Palin wore a Buchanan button during Buchanan's visit to Wasilla, the town she then led as mayor. At that time, however, Palin had written a letter to the local paper explaining that she wore campaign buttons as a matter of courtesy when candidates came to visit the town; she was an official of the campaign of Steve Forbes, who was contending for the Republican presidential nomination.
Buchanan said he remembers meeting Palin at a 1996 fund-raiser in Alaska; however no record of her donating or supporting Buchanan at that time has surfaced.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/110161.html