From Reuters John McCain responded to North Carolina’s GOP refusal to stop airing an aid attacking Senator Barack Obama by saying the party was “out of touch”.

Many North Carolina TV stations refused to air the ad and it was condemned by the National Republican Party and Senator John McCain. The ad replays scenes of Barack Obama’s pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright and connects the endorsements of locals Bev Perdue and Richard Moore made to Barack Obama to those statements.

From the Reuters article:

“They’re not listening to me because they’re out of touch with reality and the Republican Party. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan and this kind of campaigning is unacceptable,” McCain told NBC’s “Today” Show.

“I’ve done everything that I can to repudiate and to see that this kind of campaigning does not continue,” he added.

Asked if the state party’s unwillingness to heed his call raised questions about his leadership, McCain replied: “I don’t know exactly how to respond to that.”