With Barack Obama’s connection to a 1960s radical, foes of the Democratic nominee for president hoped they had the “Swift Boat” for 2008.

What they ended up with was more of a slow schooner that’s managed to stay afloat.

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill was the latest to reject suggestions that Obama is close to Bill Ayers, a founder of the anti-establishment group the Weathermen, which bombed government buildings to protest the war in Vietnam.

McCaskill was on Fox News Sunday, responding to a comment from GOP veep nominee Sarah Palin, who over the weekend referred to Obama as “someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

“I mean, really, how ridiculous. American people deserve so much better,’ McCaskill said Sunday. “Do they really think America is going to think that Barack Obama’s palling around with terrorists? What that man did Barack Obama has condemned. And by the way, he did it when Barack Obama was 8 years old. Come on.”

Ayers, now a college professor, lives in the same Chicago neighborhood, Hyde Park, as Obama. The two sat on the board of the same education foundation. Early in his political career, Ayers hosted a coffee for Obama.

A New York Times story on Saturday found that Obama perhaps has downplayed his association with Ayers, but “the two men do not appear to have been close.”

Ties between Ayers and Obama have been targeted by the American Issues Project, an independent group formed with the help of two prominent Missouri Republicans, Tony Feather and Ed Martin.

Outside the beltway, the group has not gained much traction — some networks refused to run their ad.

Even so, Republicans have signaled they are prepared to pepper the final month of campaigning with sharper attacks against Obama’s character — which means voters should be prepared to hear more about Ayers before they head to the ballot box.