Ed Martin involved in controversial Obama ad
Anybody who knows peripatetic Republican lawyer Ed Martin knows that he enjoys doing lots of things — serving as chief of staff to Gov. Matt Blunt, heading the St. Louis 
Elections Board, organizing opposition to the Anheuser-Busch takeover — but staying on the sidelines is not one of them.
Now, Martin is embroiled in a fight over a controversial ad targeting Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
Martin is one of two board members on a group called the American Issues Project. (The other board member is a former John McCain advisor.)
The organization is being funded by Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, who also gave money to the Swift Boat ads that helped sink John Kerry’s 2004 campaign.
This year, the American Issues Project is pushing an ad that ties Obama to 1960s radical William Ayers Jr.
Ayers, now a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, founded the violent left-wing group Weather Underground, whose activities included placing bombs in the U.S. Capitol and Pentagon.
According to the New York Times, Obama served on a charitable board with Ayers, and was a guest at his home when he was running for state senate.
Obama, the Times said, has called Ayers “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old.”
The campaign claims that the AIP is violating federal election laws, and has asked the Department of Justice to block the Ayers commercial. The pressure seems to be working: Fox News and CNN, as the Politico notes, have on their own decided not to air the spot.
Though if the Obama campaign thought that a letter to the feds would stop Martin, they don’t know him very well.
“These over-the-top bullying tactics are reminiscent of the kind of censorship one would see in a Stalinist dictatorship,” Martin told the Times. “With the only difference being that those guys generally had to wait until they were in power to throw people who disagreed with them into jail.”
In other words, don’t wait for Martin on the sidelines.
Last night on a local radio station Ed Martin said that George W. Bush may not attend the Republican National Convention because of the Gulf storm Gustav. How’s that for spin? Well, that’s one way to keep the most dangerous threat to McCains presidential abitions out of the spot light.
Katrina hit on a Monday and Bush didn’t get to New Orleans until Friday.
But hey, it wasn’t his fault….He was on vacation.