Group Says Similar Ad Placed At DEN For Obama, Too

An anti-nuclear group's efforts to garner political attention from the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has raised eyebrows, and ire.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported Tuesday that Northwest Airlines asked Clear Channel Communications to pull a billboard at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, stating the ad urging Republican presidential candidate John McCain to support reductions of nuclear weapons was inflammatory.

The advertisement, put up in Concourse G last Friday, carries the message "When only one nuclear bomb could destroy a city like Minneapolis ... we don't need 6,000. Senator McCain: It's time to get serious about reducing the nuclear threat." Northwest terms the ad "scary" and "anti-McCain."

"Out of an abundance of respect for both parties, we will not allow attack ads of either persuasion to be prominently displayed in our concourses," NWA spokeswoman Tammy Lee told the paper, noting an unrelated advertisement targeting likely Democrat nominee Barack Obama will be removed, as well.

"Our customers and employees complained and we responded. We will not be a party to petty political attacks on either side," Lee added.

St. Paul will be home to the Republican National Convention at the end of this month. As Northwest is based in nearby Eagan, MN, it stands to reason that many Republican delegates will be flying in on Northwest aircraft.

Elliott Negin -- spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists, which paid for the $9,400 ad -- calls Northwest's move blatent censorship. "To say that this is anti-McCain is ludicrous," he said, adding the group has a similar ad addressing Obama in place at Denver International Airport in time for next week's Democratic Party convention.

"We're calling on both candidates and their respective parties to address this," he said. "There's nothing offensive about the ads. They're not scary. It's just words and a photograph."

Clear Channel disagreed. The communications giant sided with Northwest, and plans to remove the ad posthaste.

FMI: www.nwa.com, www.clearchannel.com, www.ucsusa.org, www.johnmccain.com, www.barackobama.com