McCain uses Obama's stance on Cuba to raise $$

Don't like Barack Obama's stance on Cuba? Send John McCain $$. That's the message of an e-mail from McCain campaign manager Rick Davis who said Obama has said "he would sit down unconditionally, with Raul Castro.

"It would be a wonderful thing if we lived in a world without enemies," Davis writes in the fundraising appeal. "But that's not the world in which we live, and until Senator Obama understands that reality, the American people have every reason to doubt whether he has the strength, judgment and determination to keep us safe."

Obama, in a CNN interview about to be aired, says McCain's assertions "aren't serious.

"I have never said that I was prepared to immediately normalize relations with Cuba," Obama said, according to a CNN transcript. "The only person who has flip-flopped on this issue is John McCain who in 2000 said that he would be prepared to start normalizing relations even if a whole host of steps have not been taken. That is a reversal from the position he is taking now...

"What I have also said is that I will be willing to engage in direct talks with Cuba," he said. "Now, I know that John McCain likes to characterize this as me immediately having Raul Castro over for tea. What I've said is that we would set a series of meetings with low level diplomats, set up some preparation but that over time I would be willing to meet and talk very directly about what we expect from the Cuban regime."