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McCain Camp Denies Buchanan Claims

The McCain camp rebuked claims by Democrats that Sarah Palin once associated with Pat Buchanan. “Governor Palin has never worked for any effort to elect Pat Buchanan—that assertion is completely false,” Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), told ABC in discussing Palin, the Alaska governor and vice presidential choice.

The Democratic Party issued a release quoting U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) as saying that McCain’s pick was a “direct affront to all Jewish Americans” because of reports of Palin’s past associations with Buchanan, who has long postulated that the pro-Israel lobby is inordinately influential and that Hitler might have been contained through peaceful means.

Wexler’s comments appear based on a 1999 report that Palin wore a Buchanan button during Buchanan’s visit to Wasilla, the town she then led as mayor. At that time, however, Palin had written a letter to the local paper explaining that she wore campaign buttons as a matter of courtesy when candidates came to visit the town.

Palin was an official of the campaign of Steve Forbes, who like Buchanan was contending for the Republican presidential nomination. Buchanan said he recalls meeting Palin at a 1996 fund-raiser in Alaska, but no record of her donating or supporting Buchanan at that time has surfaced.

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