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Obama shifts campaign focus to Midwest

US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama waves as rain falls during a rally with running mate Joe Biden at the University of Mary Washington during a rally in Fredericksburg, Virginia. PHOTO: AFP

US Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama was to move his campaign to the industrial Midwest yesterday as he and his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, tore into one another over the reeling US economy.

Obama was to speak at a rally in Detroit one day after the US Senate approved US$25 billion in loan guarantees for the financially strapped US auto industry.

The bill, which passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday, contains the first loan guarantees for US carmakers since Congress approved a similar US$675 million measure for Chrysler in 1980.

On Saturday, Obama went after Republican nominee McCain at a rally in North Carolina, saying he had come across in the first of three debate clashes on Friday as out of touch on the economic and national security perils facing the US.

McCain spent most of the day on Saturday holed up in his campaign office and apartment outside Washington making a flurry of calls regarding the US$700 billion finance industry bailout before markets open today.

But he fired off an acerbic critique of Obama’s debate performance, ripping his rival over his economic policy and attitude toward the war in Iraq, in a speech by satellite to the Sportsmen’s Alliance, a hunting and shooting lobby group.

“It was clear that Senator Obama still sees the financial crisis in America as a national problem to be exploited first and solved later,” he said. “This is a moment of great testing, when the future of our economy is on the line.”

McCain’s comments served as a riposte to Obama’s own assessment of the debate, just five weeks before election day on Nov. 4.

“From taxes to health care to the war in Iraq — you heard John McCain make the case for more of the same policies that got us into this mess,” Obama told a rally in North Carolina.

“But just as important as what we heard from John McCain was what we didn’t hear,” Obama said at a rally in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“The truth is, through 90 minutes of debating, John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he had nothing to say about you. He didn’t even say the words ‘middle class’ — not once,” Obama said at the rally.

McCain flew directly back to Washington after the debate at the University of Mississippi.

McCain had faced intense fire from Democrats who blamed the collapse of an apparent deal on the bailout last week on McCain’s decision to rush back to Washington in what they branded a publicity stunt.

Neither McCain 72, nor Obama, 47, landed a decisive blow in the debate at the University of Mississippi or committed a major gaffe, a verdict that benefits Obama given his lead in the polls.

An instant telephone poll by CNN and Opinion Research Corp after the debate scored a decisive win for Obama among 524 debate watchers. Asked who did the better job, 51 percent said Obama and 38 percent said McCain.

The Democrat had a yawning lead of 58 percent to 37 percent on handling the economy, and a narrower edge of 52 percent to 47 percent on the Iraq War, the pollsters said.
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