Bill Ayers 2008 presidential election controversy
Election campaign controversy / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, controversy broke out [1] regarding Barack Obama's relationship with Bill Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a former leader of the Weather Underground, a radical left organization in the 1970s.[2] Investigations by CNN, The New York Times and other news organizations concluded that Obama did not have a close relationship with Ayers.[3][4][5]
Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, hosted a gathering at their home in 1995,[6] where Alice Palmer introduced Obama as her chosen successor in the Illinois State Senate.[4][7] Obama and Ayers' service on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago overlapped for three years from 1999 to 2002.[4][6][7]
The matter was first raised by the British and American press, then by conservative blogs and talk radio programs,[8][9] and then by moderator George Stephanopoulos during a debate between Hillary Clinton and Obama in April 2008. The Obama–Ayers connection was deemed a major campaign issue by Republican presidential candidate John McCain and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the 2008 presidential election campaign. Obama condemned Ayers' past,[10][11] and stated that he did not have a close association with him.[6]