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North Carolina Republican Party officials insisted the ad would run as planned despite McCain's request.
The ad opens with a photo of Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright together and a clip of Wright, whose incendiary comments about race have bedeviled Obama.
"He's just too extreme for North Carolina," the narrator says in the 30-second spot.
"We asked them not to run it," McCain told reporters traveling with him in Kentucky. "I'm sending them an e-mail as we speak asking them to take it down.
"I don't know why they do it," he said. "Obviously, I don't control them, but I'm making it very clear, as I have a couple of times in the past, that there's no place for that kind of campaigning, and the American people don't want it."
McCain said the ad was described to him. "I didn't see it, and I hope that I don't see it," he said.
Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan, who accompanied McCain, said he had left a voice-mail message for state party chairwoman Linda Daves asking her to pull the ad.
McCain, in an e-mail to Daves, said he would draw sharp contrasts with Democrats. "But we need not engage in political tactics that only seek to divide the American people."
Asked about the ad during an appearance in New Albany, Ind., Obama said: "My understanding is that the Republican National Committee and John McCain have both said that the ad's inappropriate. I take them at their word, and I assume that if John McCain thinks that it's an inappropriate ad, that he can get them to pull it down, since he's their nominee and standard-bearer."
North Carolina GOP spokesman Brent Woodcox said the ad would begin running statewide Monday, a week before the state's May 6 primary. The ad actually targets gubernatorial candidates Richard Moore and Bev Perdue, Democrats who have endorsed Obama.
"We have a great relation with the RNC, and we fully support John McCain for president," Woodcox said. "But this is an ad about two North Carolina candidates for governor. The ad is going to run."
Obama has denounced the most inflammatory of Wright's comments but says the pastor should not be judged solely on a handful of remarks. Obama has expressed admiration for the pastor, who officiated at his wedding, baptized his two daughters, and inspired the title of his best-selling book, The Audacity of Hope.
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