Obama, McCain lavish attention on key Ohio

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-28 11:04

WASHINGTON -- Republican John McCain lavished attention on Ohio, a state he cannot afford to lose, promising better economic days ahead as he fought against a rising tide of support for Democratic opponent Barack Obama a week before the presidential election.

US Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama (D-IL) campaigns at a rally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, October 27, 2008. Obama is campaigning in Ohio and Pennsylvania on Monday before the November 4 election. [Agencies]

Both candidates blitzed through the critical state Monday, with Obama delivering what he called his campaign's "closing argument" in the soaring rhetoric that marked the start of his long-shot White House run nearly two years ago.

Hours after Obama told Ohio voters, "We are one week away from changing America," federal agents reported breaking up a plot to assassinate the Illinois senator and shoot or decapitate 88 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.

Obama would be the first African American president in a country still struggling to overcome a troubled and violent racial history. An Obama spokeswoman traveling with the candidate had no immediate comment on the plot, which involved two young men, one from Tennessee and the second from Arkansas, both southern states.

With valuable campaign time slipping away, Obama and McCain also both spent time Monday in neighboring Pennsylvania, the only major Democratic-leaning state where the Republican is aggressively campaigning in hopes of mounting a comeback.

Obama, who has actively sought to diminish race as a campaign issue, continued to direct heavy political fire Monday at McCain's association with the unpopular President George W. Bush, a fellow Republican who is taking much of the blame for the country's accelerating economic decline.

McCain was trying to climb out of the deep political hole on economic issues, huddling with economic advisers and pledging a break with Bush administration policies.

"I will protect your savings and retirement accounts and get this stock market rising again," said McCain.

Aides said that McCain's call for cuts in the capital gains tax and tax breaks for seniors would help the market rebound.

In what amounted to his own closing argument of the marathon election, McCain walked a thin line between bashing Obama and making clear that he would steer a different course than the current Republican administration.

"We both disagree with President Bush on economic policies," McCain said. "My approach is to get spending under control. The difference between us is he (Obama) thinks taxes have been too low, and I think that spending has been too high."

Obama tacked back toward his theme of change and hope in his Ohio speeches.

"In one week, we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo," Obama said. "We can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history. That's what's at stake."

Obama made a strategic choice to give this speech in pivotal Ohio, where he struggled to connect with working-class voters during the primaries and lost the Ohio primary to New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. No Democrat has won the presidency without the support of the state since John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Bush's victory in Ohio sealed his second White House term four years ago. But the state turned Democratic two years later when Ted Strickland was elected governor, and Sherrod Brown unseated a Republican incumbent to win his Senate seat.

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