Nixon on his back and Obama in his sights

HE'S the most deadly of all the Republican Party sleazemeisters, a vodka martini-swigging bodybuilder with a tattoo of Richard Nixon between his shoulder blades and a penchant for swingers' bars. He's a larger-than-life dandy who owns 100 made-to-measure suits and almost as many fob watches and Homburg hats.

Roger Stone, the libertine with the shock of blond hair, is also the undisputed master of the black arts of electioneering and the man who stalks Barack Obama's nightmares. When Stone rears his head again – and make no mistake, he will – it will be a signal that the race for the White House has just turned nasty.

Stone may just be the most influential man you've never heard of, but many are familiar with his work. The Bush family certainly are.

Remember Willie Horton, the black bogeyman that put paid to Michael Dukakis's campaign in 1988? He was the rapist who killed while on parole and the face of a campaign dreamed up by Stone – Dukakis was Massachusetts governor when Horton was released for a trial weekend – which is credited with putting George Bush Snr in the White House. It remains the benchmark for dirty campaigning.

Stone put Bush's son, George W, in the White House too. Things weren't going well in 2000, with the election clearly turning on the key state of Florida and a recount pending. Bush insider James Baker called for Stone, who came up with the strategy of paying to place "guests" on the popular and virulently anti-communist Cuban radio talk shows in Miami. They all banged home the message that the recount was "a left-wing power grab by (Al] Gore in the same way as Castro did it in Cuba". The recount was promptly stopped.

Four years later in 2004, when allegations were about to surface that Bush junior had dodged military service in Vietnam, Stone planted the rumours that the documents that confirmed the story were fakes. The first headlines ran saying that Bush had sidestepped the war, but within an hour CBS were reporting that the documents were forgeries.

Those are just the tip of the iceberg. For the past 35 years he has been taking a wrecking ball to the character of every Democratic presidential nominee. Since Richard Nixon, every Republican who has successfully run for president has employed the services of this perma-tanned political hit man with a taste for good old-fashioned McCarthyist anti-communism.

Obama's campaign team have no doubt that McCain will call on 56-year-old Stone: it's not a question of if, just when. He doesn't even seem to need paying these days.

In February, he raised the question of Obama's patriotism, after the then democratic contender's refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin and a photo of him not putting his hand over his heart during the National Anthem. Stone labelled him part of the "blame America first crowd".

Then he propagated the notion that Michelle Obama had made anti-white comments in 2004 – she was said to have used the word "whitey" – and that a tape existed of her purported speech.

In an interview with New Yorker magazine he said: "Obama and his wife are élitists and they're weak. They don't share middle-class values. Middle-class Americans are proud of their country, and they are not. He thinks he's going to sit down with Iran and Hamas. How do you know he's not going to shake hands with a suicide bomber? You can't sit down with people who don't want to sit down. All he's going to do is raise taxes, which is going to give the government more money but it's not going to create any jobs."

He added, in what amounted to a job pitch: "McCain himself should not run a slash-and-burn campaign, but a slash-and-burn campaign will have to be run by others."

Stone has a huge "list of political commandments" that he quotes at length as if he were a rabble-rousing evangelical preacher. His favourite is the exhortation to "hit it from every angle. Open multiple fronts on your enemy. He must be confused, and feel besieged on every side".

Despite his successes, Stone's love of the high life and willingness to break a few eggs to make political omelettes have proved problematic for him. His willingness to lobby on behalf of controversial clients – as well as Donald Trump, he has worked for Al Sharpton, Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko, Angola's Unita rebels, and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos – has raised eyebrows, but it is his devotion to swinging that has put him beyond the pale and meant that candidates cannot be seen to hire him.

"Hot, insatiable lady and her handsome body builder husband, experienced swingers, seek similar couples or exceptional muscular single men," read Stone's advert in Local Swing Fever magazine, alongside a picture of Stone and his wife, next to a note encouraging athletes and military men to apply while discouraging overweight candidates. The National Enquirer had a field day.

Stone's penchant for sleaze has come in handy of late though. Drinking in one his regular haunts, a swingers' bar called Miami Velvet, he met an off-duty prostitute who confessed that one of her clients was Eliot Spitzer, the then governor of New York. She even told him about Spitzer's peccadillo: doing it with his socks on. Stone couldn't believe his luck – his great friend Michael Caputo was locked in a business dispute with Spitzer and Stone was helping vilify the governor through viral websites like spitzerfile.com.

"I thought Spitzer was a punk, and I wanted to f**k with him any way I could," said Stone. Not only is the disgraced Spitzer now a former governor, but he is also facing criminal charges that could see him jailed.

America's Muslims left 'hurt and offended' by nominee's snub

THEY should be natural supporters with crucial concentrations in key states. But prominent American Muslims believe that presidential hopeful Barack Obama is shunning them as he attempts to win the White House.

During the election campaign Obama has addressed audiences in synagogues and churches, but has yet to speak in a mosque.

A number of Muslim and Arab American organisations say the Democrat nominee has ignored their requests to meet them and fear he is keeping them at arm's length to avoid identification with a group many voters fear and distrust.

Now Muslims, who could help tilt the election in Obama's favour, feel that a candidate many supported early on in this campaign has dumped them.

If the perception persists, it could affect the outcome of the presidential race. There are six million Muslim voters in the US with sizeable populations in closely fought states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Mahdi Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, a political group in Washington, said Obama was a "candidate who claims he wants to bring about change and deal with all communities".

"He has reached out to Jewish, Christian and other religious communities, but his attempts to engage with the Muslim community have been minimal. People out there play on the post-9/11 fear factor," said Bray. "The distance he has established is not acceptable."

Obama's problem was crystallised this month when two Muslim women wearing headscarves were barred by campaign volunteers from appearing behind Obama at a rally in Detroit. Obama later phoned the women to apologise.

Muslim political and civic leaders say they understand that Obama, who last night announced an August trip to the UK and Middle East, is in a difficult position. Yet they expressed their hurt and anger at his refusal to meet or be seen in public with them.

"The Muslim American community is sick of being held at arm's length," said Edina Lekovic, spokesperson for the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

"We understand that it would be politically damaging for (Obama] to be identified with the Islamic faith, but the Muslim community is simultaneously hurt and offended by the way he has dealt with the allegations that he is a Muslim. Shouldn't his answer be: 'I'm not a Muslim, but so what if I was?'"

Claire Prentice in New York