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News – World: McCain, Obama step up battleground blitz

WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.

Original Post Date: 2008-10-31 Time: 21:00:07  Posted By: Jan

Youngstown, Ohio – Democrat Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain take their White House duel deep into the American heartland on Friday in a final push for votes ahead of next week’s historic election.

With just four days left before Tuesday’s polls, front-runner Obama, attempting to become the first black US president, was to hold campaign rallies in the midwestern states of Iowa and Indiana while McCain wraps up a bus tour of Ohio.

On Thursday the two candidates traded body-blows after grim new figures showed the world’s largest economy is staring at recession.

The US government said the economy had shrunk by 0,3 percent in the third quarter through September, its worst contraction since 2001.

McCain’s campaign insisted the bleak economic outlook would be made even worse by an Obama administration, saying the Democrat would raise taxes on small businesses and so stifle growth and kill jobs.

“Today’s announcement … confirms what Americans already knew: the economy is shrinking,” McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin said in a statement. “Barack Obama would accelerate this dangerous course.”

But Obama, 47, pounced on the news to say his rival would pursue what he called failed Republican policies promulgated by President George W. Bush.

“If you want to know where John McCain will drive this economy, just look in the rear-view mirror. Because when it comes to our economic policies, John McCain has been right next to George Bush,” Obama said.

Obama said the job facing the president-elect taking office on January 20 had gotten much harder as a result of the financial crisis.

“It’s going to be a lot tougher. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. We know that the next president is likely to inherit a significant recession,” Obama told NBC News in an interview.

McCain, 72, has struggled to compete with Obama on economic policy as polls show the issue remains the overwhelming concern for voters.

The latest national poll by the New York Times and CBS News gave Obama a yawning lead of 11 points among likely voters – 52 percent to 41 for McCain.

It also suggested that McCain’s running mate choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin – who would become the first woman elected to vice-president – might be dragging on his campaign.

Fifty-nine percent of voters surveyed thought the Palin was not prepared for the job of vice president and 41 percent of respondents had an unfavourable opinion of her, compared with 36 percent who had a favourable opinion.

On Thursday McCain wheeled out Ohio tradesman Samuel J Wurzelbacher, better known as “Joe the Plumber,” to buttress his case in a state that he must win if he is to take the White House.

No US president has been elected without winning Ohio since 1960, and Obama is ahead in state polls.

McCain was to call on former movie star turned California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to campaign alongside him in Ohio on Friday, before heading to Pennsylvania, another state where he trails in the polls.

“This is a tough race. We’re in a tough economy. We’re in tough times. And so, we’re going to fight it out on the economic grounds,” McCain told ABC News early on Friday.

Obama was enlisting former vice president Al Gore to campaign for him in Florida, where the anti-global warming crusader suffered his agonising loss in the 2000 election to Bush.

After his Iowa event, the Democrat was to break for a Halloween visit to his two young daughters in Chicago before heading to an evening rally in Highland, Indiana, just over the Illinois border.

Obama has a decisive polling lead in Iowa, which was won by Bush last time. Conservative Indiana has rarely been friendly territory to Democratic presidential aspirants, but McCain is barely ahead in polls there.

Source: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=nw20081031153245751C468506