'Willie Horton' ad creator takes on Obama

On a website he calls ExposeObama.com, Floyd G. Brown, the producer of the "Willie Horton" ad that helped defeat Michael Dukakis in 1988, is preparing an encore.

Brown is raising money for a series of ads that he says will show Barack Obama to be out of touch on an issue of fundamental concern to voters: violent crime. One spot already on the Internet attacks the presumptive Democratic nominee for opposing a bill while he was an Illinois legislator that would have extended the death penalty to gang-related murders.

"When the time came to get tough, Obama chose to be weak. . . . Can a man so weak in the war on gangs be trusted in the war on terror?" the video asks.

Though crime has taken a back seat in the presidential race to the war in Iraq and the economy, some Republicans think that Obama is vulnerable on this issue and hope to inject it into the campaign.

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