McCain proposes $52.5 billion economic plan

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-15 09:33

Surveys in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, states that typically vote Democratic, but that McCain once hoped to win, showed the Republican losing ground.

US Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama makes a statement on the economy at the Maumee Bay Resort in Oregon, Ohio October 14, 2008. Obama leads Republican rival John McCain by 14 percentage points, a CBS News/New York Times poll showed on Tuesday. [Agencies]

In Michigan, a Quinnipiac University poll for The Wall Street Journal and the Web site of The Washington Post showed Obama, who would be the country's first black president, leading his opponent 54 percent to 38 percent. Earlier this month, McCain announced he was pulling staff and advertising out of the state, ceding it to Obama.

The same poll in Wisconsin put Obama ahead by a 17 percentage-point spread after the second presidential debate, 54-37. In Minnesota, the Quinnipiac survey for the Journal and the Post Web site had Obama with a 51-40 percentage point advantage after the second debate.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News national poll showed Obama with a 10 point lead, 53-43 percent, among likely voters with an even larger 2-to-1 margin among voters who put the economy as the top issue in the campaign. And the most recent Gallup Poll tracking survey showed Obama up by 10 points, 51-41. Polls show Obama now leading in enough states to be within reach of the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory.

Obama was taking Tuesday off to prepare for coming debate, while McCain's No. 2, Sarah Palin joined McCain in Pennsylvania, one of the few Democratic-leaning states where the Republican is still aggressively campaigning although polls show Obama with a solid lead.

Palin talked about McCain's mortgage plan, calling it "not a hand-out, but a hand up" to keep financially overwhelmed Americans in their homes. McCain has called for the government to buy up bad mortgages at full face value and renegotiate them at a lower rate, although the proposal has been widely criticized by conservatives as a bailout for bad lenders.

Under criticism from fellow Republicans, McCain reset his campaign strategy yet again with a new stump speech Monday that eased back on harsh attacks against Obama while at the same time delivering some of his toughest criticism so far of Bush's economic policies.

The latest shift in the campaign appears to have grown out of the realization that the assaults were not hindering Obama's rise in the polls. The changed tone was stark.

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