Sen. Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, a former member of the radical group the Weatherman, have worked with each other on charity projects, but representatives for Senator Obama say his relationship with Mr. Ayers has been exaggerated by Senator John McCain’s campaign, reports The New York Times. The Weatherman conducted a bombing campaign nearly 40 years ago to protest the Vietnam War.

In the mid-1990s, Mr. Ayers, along with two other education activists, applied for a grant from the Annenberg Foundation for school-improvement efforts in Chicago. Senator Obama became the chairman of the six-member board that oversaw the distribution of the grants.

The pair also served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago charity that had supported Mr. Obama’s first work as a community organizer in the 1980s. (See The Chronicle’s article on the scrutiny the fund came under during the primary season.)

In response to attacks made by Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, Mr. Obama said his opponents “are gambling that he can distract you with smears rather than talk to you about substance. They’d rather try to tear our campaign down than lift this country up. It’s what you do when you’re out of touch, out of ideas, and running out of time,” reports the Associated Press.

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