Barack Obama and John McCain are butting heads over how and whether to stage the joint town hall meetings that the presumptive GOP nominee has proposed.

McCain says he wants to hold 10 joint town halls, in which the two candidates would take unscripted questions from audience members. He held the first of these meetings Thursday night, but Obama did not attend.

The presumptive Democratic nominee has said he's open to the idea, but Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Friday that so far the discussions between the two campaigns have failed.

Plouffe said in a statement that McCain has rejected Obama's latest counter-offer to meet him for five joint appearances between now and the Nov. 4 election. Only one of those would be a town hall meeting, though. Three would be the traditional presidential debates and another would be an "in-depth" debate on foreign policy in August.

"That package of five engagements would have been the most of any presidential campaign in the modern era," Plouffe said. "It's disappointing that Sen. McCain and his campaign decided to decline this proposal. Apparently, they would rather contrive a political issue than foster a genuine discussion about the future of our country."

McCain said Friday he still wants to pursue the town hall meetings but complained that the only such meeting Obama proposed was on July 4.

"We all know what Americans do on the Fourth of July so of all times, obviously, that would be the least viewed," he told reporters after a stop in New Jersey.

"Barack Obama has more conditions for having a town hall with John McCain than he does for meetings with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said, referring to Obama's stated willingness to meet with rogue leaders without preconditions.

The McCain campaign also released a letter Friday that campaign manager Rick Davis sent to Plouffe about McCain's town hall proposal. In it, Davis wrote that the campaign had planned another for June 19 in Minnesota and asked Obama to attend.

Davis also wrote that McCain has accepted an invitation from Nancy Reagan and two of President Johnson's daughters to hold similar meetings in July at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library.

"However, at this moment, we fear that our negotiations over joint town hall meetings are turning into a debate about process," Davis wrote.

Town hall meetings are McCain's favorite way to campaign. He holds them far more often than the major stadium rallies Obama holds. And though his plan for joint meetings proposes taking unscripted questions, the audience Thursday night was notably pro-McCain.

The guests applauded when McCain criticized Obama and repeatedly praised the Arizona senator for his military service when they asked their questions.

FOX News' Mosheh Oinounou and The Associated Press contributed to this report.