COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – On the same day that John McCain and Barack Obama pledged to put political differences aside and appear together at ground zero for the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the two campaigns were engaged Saturday in a flap over the American flag.
The spat began in this Republican stronghold at an airport rally for McCain and running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Before the Republican presidential ticket took the stage, a radio personality emceeing the event announced veterans were going to give the rally crowd thousands of small American flags that were discarded and rescued from Obama's massive Democratic National Convention rally at Denver's Invesco Field.
The emcee, radio host Dan Caplis, told the estimated audience of 12,000 that the flags were going to be thrown away or burned, soliciting loud jeers.
McCain supporters said the flags were found by a vendor at Invesco Field after the convention. The vendor allegedly found trash bags full of flags in and around garbage bins, recovered them and gave them to the McCain campaign.
But the Democratic National Committee and Democratic convention organizers said the flags weren't discarded but were snatched from Invesco Field by the McCain camp.
"American flags were proudly waved by the 75,000 people who joined Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention," Karen Finney, a Democratic National Committee spokeswoman, said in a written statement. "John McCain should applaud that, but instead his supporters wrongfully took leftover bundles of our flags from the stadium to play out a cheap political stunt calling into question our patriotism."
The flag flap took the luster off a rare joint announcement by the McCain and Obama campaigns that the Democratic and Republican candidates would stand side by side at next week's Sept. 11 anniversary event at New York's ground zero, where the World Trade Center stood before two hijacked jetliners sliced through the twin towers.
While politics may be set aside for a few hours next week at ground zero, the candidates continued their criticisms of one another Saturday.
At a rally at the county fairgrounds in Terre Haute, Ind., Obama said McCain is captive to his party and unable to provide a clean break from Bush administration policies, calling the GOP nominee a creature of Washington and mocking Palin for flip-flopping on earmarks.
"Now think about this. This has come from the party that has been in charge for eight years," Obama told a crowd of about 800 in a 4-H arena. "They've been running the show. So don't be fooled. … John McCain's party, with the help of John McCain, has been in charge."
McCain, meanwhile, before a crowd of thousands of supporters in Colorado Springs, urged voters to "send a team of mavericks" to Washington.
"Let me offer a little advance warning to the old big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd," McCain thundered, borrowing a line from his convention speech. "Change is coming! Change is coming!"
Palin, who has regularly drawn louder applause than McCain since being chosen as his running mate, drew a roar of approval at the same event when she described McCain as a man who "doesn't run with the Washington herd."
She also took her first public shot at her rival for the vice presidency, describing Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., as a relic of the Beltway establishment who will not push for reform.
Call William Douglas, McClatchy Washington Bureau, (202) 383-6026. The Washington Post contributed to this report.
