OXFORD, Ohio -- House Republican leader John Boehner used a vulgar expression to refer to Democrat Barack Obama and his voting record in the Illinois legislature.

While campaigning for Republican presidential candidate John McCain Wednesday, Boehner told a small crowd at a bar in the college town of Oxford that failing to vote yes or no on an issue meant a lawmaker was a "chickenshit."

The Ohio congressman said the last thing the country needs is to have a "chicken" in the White House.

Boehner spokesman Jessica Towhey confirmed the remarks yesterday but said the congressman wasn't calling Obama the vulgar term. "The point that Boehner was making was that Barack Obama has consistently avoided making tough decisions and taking tough votes, and voters need to know that," she said.

The remarks, first reported in The Miami Student, published at Miami University, alluded to Obama's record of voting "present" 129 times as a state legislator. About 100 people attended the event, most of them Republican college students.

"In Congress, we have a red button, a green button and a yellow button, all right. Green means yes, red means no, and yellow means you're a chickenshit," Boehner said to the loudest applause of the event. "And the last thing we need in the White House, in the Oval Office, behind that big desk, is some chicken who wants to push this yellow button."

In the Illinois General Assembly, "present" votes are common and used for much more than avoiding a difficult choice. At times, legislators vote "present" when they have a conflict of interest. In other cases, they do it to register opposition to a procedural decision or to signal that they support a bill's goal but think the legislation is flawed.

In Obama's case, the 129 "present" votes amounted to about 3.5 percent of the votes he cast in nearly eight years as a state senator.

Boehner also disparaged Obama's work as a community organizer: "If somebody can tell me what a community organizer is, maybe I can understand it better."

An Obama spokesman called Boehner's words an angry attack.