Telemarketers quit over Barack Obama-Bill Ayers calls

MADISON, Wis. — Telemarketers in Wisconsin and West Virginia asked to make calls bashing Barack Obama and linking him to 1960s radical William Ayers quit their jobs rather than read the required script.

The calls were paid for by the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee and are being placed in several states across the country.

In West Virginia, Fairmont State University student Chaylee Cole said she and a friend refused to call people and read a script last week that linked Obama to Ayers.

‘‘I just didn’t agree with it,’’ Cole said Wednesday. ‘‘I didn’t know it if was true and I wasn’t going to call people and push this on them.’’

Cole, 18, said she and her friend Kelsey Stalnaker left work that day without getting paid. Cole said she quit the following day, on Friday. Stalnaker did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

The McCain campaign defended the Ayers call.

‘‘At no point has anyone disputed any point in this phone call,’’ said campaign spokeswoman Sarah Lenti. ‘‘Barack Obama has yet to answer the many questions the American people have about his connections to an unrepentant domestic terrorist. If the script is troubling, it is because many find Obama’s associations and judgment very troubling.’’

Neither she nor Republican National Committee spokesman Chris Taylor would say how many states the call is being placed in. Democrats have reported receiving the call in battleground states across the country including Wisconsin, Ohio, Colorado, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Missouri.

Cole, a Democrat who said she will vote for Obama, felt the call crossed the line.

‘‘Democrat or Republican, the candidates ought to be about what they can do best for our country and not slandering one’s name,’’ she said.

The call claims that ‘‘Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home and killed Americans. And Democrats will enact an extreme leftist agenda if they take control of Washington. Barack Obama and his Democratic allies lack the judgment to lead our country.’’

Obama has denounced Ayers’ past violent activities and has said Ayers is not and has never been involved in the campaign. Ayers was a founder of the Weather Underground, a group that claimed responsibility for a series of nonfatal bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol to protest U.S. foreign policies during the Vietnam War era. Now a college professor in Chicago, Ayers’ ties to Obama have been featured in Republican attacks in which Obama is accused of ‘‘palling around with terrorists.’’

Ayers and Obama also served together on a Chicago reform group and charity board and lived in the same neighborhood, although there is no evidence they were friends. Ayers also hosted a 1995 meet-and-greet event at his home when Obama was launching his first run for Illinois state Senate.

Obama has said he was 8 when Ayers ‘‘engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group.’’

That hasn’t stopped Republicans from trying to use the connection to hurt Obama.

In North Carolina, the state Republican Party paid for a mailing that tied the two together.

Both the McCain and Obama campaigns are using phone calls to reach voters. The Wisconsin Democratic Party planned to start one on Wednesday that features a small business owner from Green Bay, Jeri Watermolen, claiming that she turned against McCain because of ‘‘sleazy’’ phone calls and mail.

In Wisconsin, some of the anti-Obama calls were being placed by workers at telemarketing firm Sitel in Madison. One of the callers there, Ted Zoromski of nearby Middleton, said that he quit his job rather than read the required script that attacked Obama and the Democratic Party.

Zoromski, 26, said when he was hired he was told the call he’d be making was more like a survey seeking people’s opinions rather than a partisan attack, so he quit. Zoromski said he was a Democrat.

Sitel spokeswoman Christy Frazier did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Cole, the West Virginia student, was working for 1.2.1 Direct Response, a Philadelphia-based company that advertises itself as providing advertising, marketing, publicity, fundraising and media coverage. Company spokesman Russell Andrews did not immediately return a message seeking comment.