Republican presidential candidate John McCain addressed the National Urban League Friday and issued widespread criticisms of Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) domestic policy agenda.

“I hope you'll listen [to Obama] carefully, because his ideas are not always as impressive as his rhetoric,” the Arizona senator said. “And this is especially true in the case of the Urban League's agenda of opportunity.”

McCain addressed the group after the issue of race flared up in the general election. McCain campaign manager Rick Davis on Thursday criticized the Obama camp of “playing the race card” at an event in Missouri. Obama’s campaign has rejected that claim and said race was not interjected until Davis made his comment.

McCain criticized Obama for his opposition to private school voucher and school choice programs, especially the District of Columbia’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, which subsidized private school tuition for 1,900 area schoolchildren during the 2007-2008 academic year.  McCain implied that Obama’s stance amounted to an effort to pander to teachers' unions, citing remarks the Democrat made last month before the American Federation of Teachers in which he referred to McCain’s education proposals as “tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice.”

“All of that went over well with the teachers' union,” McCain responded Friday. “But where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?”

The Republican candidate also touted his energy plan and hit his Democratic counterpart on taxes, accusing Obama of supporting proposals to raise marginal tax rates on small businesses, families making over $32,000 a year and capital gains, and also to raise payroll and estate tax rates.

“That’s a whole lot of raising, and for millions of families, individuals and small businesses it will mean a lot less money to spend, save and invest as they see fit,” McCain stated.

Obama’s campaign strongly rejected the Republican’s claims.

“Sen. McCain’s campaign continues to take the low road today with more dishonest attacks that have been proven false repeatedly by independent news outlets like Factcheck.org,” said Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. "While Sen. McCain’s distortions say little about Sen. Obama’s plan to give 95 percent of families a $1,000 tax cut, they speak volumes about a candidate willing to repeat attacks that are simply wrong.”

Obama is due to give a speech at the National Urban League’s annual conference in Orlando, Fla., on Saturday.

The group, which describes itself on its website as “the nation’s oldest and largest community-based movement devoted to empowering African-Americans to enter the economic and social mainstream,” is headquartered in New York City and has 100 local affiliates in 35 states.