Obama says McCain campaign cynical, not racist

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Saturday that Republican rival John McCain's campaign has been cynical, not racist, in trying to raise fears about his candidacy.

Obama said McCain's campaign team was "very good at negative campaigning" and was using his relative inexperience, atypical biography and his race to try to stir up doubts about him.

McCain's campaign earlier this week said Obama played "the race card" by claiming McCain was trying to scare voters about his appearance. Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and white Kansas mother, would be the first black president.

"In no way do I think that John McCain's campaign was being racist. I think they are cynical," the Illinois senator told reporters in Cape Canaveral, Florida. "I think they want to distract people from talking about the real issues."

On the second day of a two-day tour of the key battleground state of Florida, Obama told the convention of the Urban League in Orlando that McCain had done little to support public education programs.

"For someone who's been in Washington nearly 30 years, he's got a pretty slim record on education, and when he has taken a stand, it's been the wrong one," he said. "I'm happy to put my record and ideas up against his any day."

McCain, an Arizona senator, mocked Obama in two ads this week -- one comparing him to vapid Hollywood celebrities like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, and the other lampooning him as an overconfident and Messiah-like candidate known as "the One."

Obama, 46, said race was just one of the factors the McCain campaign was using to stir up fears about him. "I don't come out of central casting, he said, listing his youth, name, birth in Hawaii and childhood in Indonesia as things voters might not be used to.

"What that means is that I'm sort of unfamiliar. People are still trying to get a fix on who I am, where I come from, what my values are," he said. "So what I think has been an approach of the McCain campaign is to say 'he's risky.'"

Obama said McCain's campaign had been taken over by former aides to President George W. Bush who were clearly planning a negative campaign.

"They are very good at negative campaigns. They are not so good at governing," he said of McCain's team. "We have seen this movie before."

MCCAIN SPOKESMAN: OBAMA IS THE CYNIC

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said Obama was the one guilty of political cynicism.

"The only 'cynical' candidate in this election is Barack Obama, who has opposed every element of John McCain's comprehensive energy plan that includes additional oil drilling, affordable nuclear energy and gas tax relief for hardworking families," he said.

Obama said his decision, announced on Friday, to back limited offshore drilling as part of a broader energy package that attempted to bring down gas prices was an effort to break gridlock in Washington on the issue.