Bill Ayers election controversy

The Bill Ayers Election Controversy relates to an alleged connection between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, raised by parties in the US 2008 Presidential election.

In February, 2008, reports began circulating about Obama's connection with Ayers, a former member of the radical 1960's group the Weather Underground. The two had served together for three years on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago, an anti-poverty foundation founded in 1941, and had appeared on various panels. In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced Obama as her chosen successor at a meeting she held at Ayer's house. Ayers, who lived in the same Chicago neighborhood Obama did, had donated $200 to Obama's 2001 state senate campaign. A Bloomberg L.P. reporter quoted Hillary Clinton who stated that the Republican Party might use Obama's association with Ayers to discredit Obama if he were chosen as the nominee of the Democratic Party.

At the Democratic Party primary debate in Philadelphia on April 16, 2008, (full transcript), moderator George Stephanopoulos questioned Obama on the matter, leading to an exchange between Obama and Clinton. Obama then referred to President Bill Clinton's pardoning of two Weather Underground convicts. (The convicts were Linda Sue Evans and Susan Rosenberg, although Obama did not refer to them by name.) Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago issued a statement in support of Bill Ayers on April 17, as did the Chicago Tribune editorial board.