Worries about One World Order and a North American Union have been "ginned up by the blogs and the Internet," Sen. Barack Obama told a Lancaster, Pennsylvania audience in a stump speech as he continued his tour through the battleground state.
The Illinois senator also defended the recently re-authorized Patriot Act.
Responding to a question from the audience, asking whether he was a member for the Council on Foreign Relations, a group many allege is leading a move toward one world government, Obama said:
"I don’t know if I’m an official member. I’ve spoken there before. It basically is a forum where people talk about foreign policy. There is no official membership. I don’t have a card, or you know a special handshake or anything like that."
Sen. Hillary Clinton has spoken several times to the club. Comments she made today against NAFTA, were posted on the group's website.
Often, because the council has served as lightning rod for conspiracy theorists, candidates shy away from listing their affiliation with the group.
Vice President Dick Cheney is a former director but has taken pains not to publicize the fact.
"I’ve been a member for long and was actually a director for some period of time," he told members in a speech broadcast on C-Span and now on YouTube, adding, "I never mentioned that when I was running for re-election back home in Wyoming."
The council has been at the center of several One World Order conspiracies with theorists contending that the group is conspiring to bring about one world government and a North American Union similar to the European Union.
Obama dismissed those notions.
"I see no evidence of this actually taking place," he said. "I think this is something that has been ginned up on certain blogs and the Internet. It was based mostly on the fact that there is this highway being built in Texas that will facilitate transportation more transportation between Mexico and the intercontinental United States and Canada...NAFTA helped to break down barriers, but I don’t think there is some conspiracy to create this one continental government."
This video is from CNN.com, broadcast March 31, 2008: