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RALEIGH (AP) - North Carolina's Republican Party is circulating a mailer highlighting Barack Obama's ties to 1960s radical William Ayers, trying to stir uncertainty about the Democratic presidential nominee's background as the stakes increase in this surprise battleground state.

The advertisement contains several photos of Ayers, including his mug shot on multiple pages. It provides a boilerplate of Ayers' radical activities from decades ago and declares Ayers and Obama to be friends.

"This is the story of William Ayers... Terrorist. Radical. Friend of Obama," the ad says before telling voters that Obama is "not who you think he is."

Obama, an Illinois senator, has denounced Ayers' past violent activities and has said Ayers is not and has never been involved in the campaign.

Brent Woodcox, a spokesman with the North Carolina Republican Party, said Obama's connection to Ayers is a legitimate issue that needs to be discussed.

"I don't think it's an exaggeration to say the next president needs to be an exceptional judge of character," Woodcox said.

But Obama spokesman Paul Cox said the mailer goes hand-in-hand with Republican presidential nominee John McCain's campaign of robocalls on the same subject.

"It's scummy," Cox said. "North Carolina deserves much better."

Ayers was a founder of the Weather Underground, a group that claimed responsibility for a series of nonfatal bombings at the Pentagon and the Capitol to protest U.S. foreign policies during the Vietnam War era.

He is now a college professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, Obama's hometown.

Republicans and the campaign of GOP presidential nominee John McCain have accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists," citing, among other things, a 1995 meet-the-candidate coffee Ayers hosted at his home for Obama as he launched his political career by running for state Senate.

The two also served together on a Chicago school reform group and a charity board, and they live in the same neighborhood. But there is no evidence they ever were close friends.

Obama has said he was 8 when Ayers "engaged in despicable acts with a radical domestic group."

Word of the mailer came two weeks before Election Day, with polls nationally and in some targeted states - including North Carolina - showing McCain trailing Obama.

The Democrat has invested time and money in hopes of putting the state in his column on Nov. 4.

North Carolina hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

The ad begins with a quote squeezed between a photo of Ayers and Obama: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."

The quote from Ayers was reported in 2001, although the mailing doesn't disclose who made the remark.

Woodcox rejected the idea that the mailer implies the quote is from Obama.

"I have a hard time seriously believe that anyone would suspect the Democratic candidate for president was involved in the setting of bombs," he said.

Before North Carolina's primary, the GOP aired an ad showing Obama with his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and a clip of Wright's anti-U.S. comments.

That ad declared that Obama was "too extreme for North Carolina."

McCain condemned that advertisement and publicly asked state party leaders to take it off the air.

They demurred, saying the local Republican headquarters had made the decision to continue running the spot.