STOCKTON, CA — So who is making age an issue now? While his campaign took great offense to Senator Obama’s subtle jab at the GOPers age a couple weeks ago, Sen. McCain decided to instead make Obama’s youth a campaign issue Thursday.

“I admire and respect Senator Obama. For a young man with very little experience, he’s done very well. So I appreciate-with his very, very great lack of experience and knowledge of the issues, he’s been very successful,” McCain said to laughter from the more than 500 supporters gathered at an airport hangar rally Thursday afternoon. “So, don’t get me wrong-I admire and respect Senator Obama, but he does not have the knowledge, background or judgment to lead this nation in these difficult and challenging times and I do. And I can keep this nation prosperous and secure.”

The dig at Obama, 46, echoes a similar line President Reagan used during a 1984 presidential debate when he defered a question about his age by reversing the issue on his younger opponent, Walter Mondale.

“I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” Reagan joked. “If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.”

McCain, who turns 72 in August, will be the oldest president ever elected to a first term in office. When Obama said during a CNN interview earlier this month that McCain was “losing his bearings,” the Republican’s senior adviser Mark Salter issued a strong statement condemning the Democrat.

“He used the words ‘losing his bearings’ intentionally, a not particularly clever way of raising John McCain’s age as an issue. This is typical of the Obama style of campaigning,” Salter wrote in a memo. “We have all become familiar with Senator Obama’s new brand of politics. First, you demand civility from your opponent, then you attack him, distort his record and send out surrogates to question his integrity. It is called hypocrisy, and it is the oldest kind of politics there is.”

Sen. McCain and his mother co-star in a Mother’s Day ad set to air on on ABC Family, A&E, Hallmark Channel, Lifetime, Oxygen and TLC. The TV spot comes out just as the GOPer is battling the age issue.

JERSEY CITY, NJ – Sen. John McCain struck back at his likely Democratic rival Friday, arguing that a senior Hamas adviser’s endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama is a “legitimate point of discussion,” after Obama called the issue a “smear.”

“It’s very obvious to everyone that Senator Obama shares nothing of the values or the goals of Hamas, which is a terrorist organization, I think that that’s obvious and I’ve certainly never implied anything else,” McCain told reporters a press conference in the Garden State Friday. “But it’s also a fact that a spokesperson from Hamas said that he approves of Senator Obama’s candidacy. I think that’s of interest to the American people and that is something that needs to be discussed–why his policies should meet the approval of a spokesperson for Hamas. I believe that’s a legitimate point of discussion.”

McCain was responding to comments made by Sen. Obama on CNN yesterday where the Illinois Senator accused the GOPer of smearing him by using the Hamas endorsement and then took a jab at his age.

“For him to toss out comments like that, I think, is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don’t need name-calling in this debate,” Obama told CNN Thursday.

While McCain said Friday that he ignored the comments, the campaign’s senior adviser Mark Salter released a memo Thursday that hammered Obama for bringing up McCain’s age and “trying desperately to delegitamize the discussion of issues that raise legitimate questions about his judgment and preparedness to be President of the United States.” (FULL MEMO AFTER JUMP)

For his part, McCain said Friday that he agrees that age is a legitimate topic for the campaign but quickly pivoted to the Jeremiah Wright issue, adding that Obama’s pastor is just as legitimate an issue.

“Every issue that the American people want to be an issue and it’s part of their discussions, it’s fine with me, it’s fine with me. Just as the Reverend Wright’s remarks, I don’t believe that senator Obama shares his views in any way but he has said that It is a legitimate topic of discussion. If that’s what the American people want to discuss, that’s fine,” McCain said. “I’ll continue to try to introduce them to my 96-year-old mother and display the same vigor and same energy that I have been able to display throughout this campaign which allowed me to win the nomination of my party. Any discussion, in my view, of any issue that the American people think is legitimate is up to them.”

For good measure, CT Sen. Joe Lieberman, who accompanied McCain to the press conference said that Americans can be assured that the presumptive GOP nominee’s “bearings” are in place.

“I just want to report that this morning I personally checked John McCain’s bearings. He has not lost any of them. They are really in great shape,” Lieberman said.

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