From the Cincinnati Enquirer ...

Radio talk show host Bill Cunningham told listeners today that Mike DeWine, John McCain's Ohio campaign chairman, and county prosecutor Joe Deters asked him over lunch last week to speak at the McCain rally.

They wanted him “to throw some red meat to the crowd… To get the crowd on their feet and get them happy,” he said.

DeWine is a former U.S. senator and Deters used to run the Republican party in Hamilton County. Deters spoke at the rally.

Cunningham called Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a "hack Chicago-style Daley politician" and used Obama's middle name -- Hussein -- twice. Cunningham also mocked the foreign policy in an Obama presidency.

The comments were subsquently repudiated by McCain, who said his campaign would not denigrate Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton.