Obama Strategist: McCain Camp Manufactured Race Debate

(Fox News) - Barack Obama’s top strategist said Friday that John McCain’s campaign manufactured a racial debate when it accused Obama of “playing the race card” the day before.

Strategist David Axelrod defended the Illinois senator, saying he was just being “self-mocking” when he told a Missouri crowd that Republicans would try to scare voters by saying he doesn’t look like “all those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

“Nobody reported it as a racial comment. … The only time this became an issue was when (McCain campaign manager) Rick Davis and their campaign decided to kick it up and make it a racial issue,” Axelrod said on NBC’s “Today.”