U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Boston) in Nashua, N.H., Saturday: Politicker Photo

NASHUA. - John Kerry called on fellow U.S. Sen. John Sununu on Saturday to denounce robocalls run in New Hampshire by Republican John McCain's presidential campaign that link Barack Obama to the 1960s radical Bill Ayers.

"Let me say something to John Sununu, those robocalls that are being run here in the state of New Hampshire by John McCain's campaign somehow trying to scare people and link Barack Obama with a past that he had nothing to do with are utterly disgraceful and have no place in American politics," the Boston Democrat said. "I call on John Sununu to break his silence and come out and tell the people of New Hampshire that those calls have no place in the Granite State."

Kerry was speaking to a crowd of about 150 before they set out to canvass on behalf of Obama and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jeanne Shaheen, who is currently locked in a tight race with Sununu.Politicker.com's Pindell Report currently ranks the New Hampshire Senate race as the seventh most competitive in the country.

McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee have launched a series of robocalls in competitive states across the country, including New Hampshire and Maine. Kerry noted that Susan Collins, a Republican U.S. senator from Maine who is running for re-election this year, hasdenounced the robocalls.

Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, also took some shots at McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin. On the way up to New Hampshire, he said, "We didn't have the Internet, couldn't text anyone, the phone went down, didn't have any radio and for the first time in my life I felt more out of touch than John McCain."

He also played on Palin's statement in an interview that Alaska's proximity to Russia gives her foreign policy experience.

"When I come to New Hampshire, to paraphrase Sarah Palin, I can see all the way to Canada," Kerry said. "That gives me a special sense of being qualified to do what I do in Washington."

Obama and Kerry supporters in Nashua, N.H., Saturday: Politicker PhotoKerry spoke for just over 14 minutes and saved some of his most biting criticisms of McCain until the end of his remarks. The Democrat said that he has known McCain for a long time and recognizes all that he has sacrificed for the country, even mentioning that he once stood with McCain in the Hanoi Hilton cell in which McCain was held during the Vietnam War.

But, he said, "I have to tell you, I don't recognize the John McCain who is running for President of the United States."

Kerry than criticized McCain for shifting positions on several issues, from torture, to President Bush's tax cuts, to climate change.

And, Kerry blasted McCain for the negativity of his campaign, drawing from the attacks Kerry himself faced in 2004 from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

"I don't know how you can tell the American people that you're going to run a campaign that recognizes the American people don't want negativity, they want big ideas, then runs one of the most negative campaigns in history," Kerry said. "Folks, I know something about accusations of being before it before you were against it, but let me tell you something, this takes the cake. This is unacceptable."