HARRISBURG, Pa. — The major nominees played to their strengths Tuesday as Democratic Sen. Barack Obama focused on the economy in the swing state of Florida while Republican Sen. John McCain emphasized his experience and credentials to be president during a visit to Pennsylvania.
With just two weeks to go until Election Day, McCain stepped up his attacks on Obama during a rally before an enthusiastic crowd in the Forum Auditorium, a 1,763-seat concert and lecture hall in the State Capitol Complex in downtown Harrisburg.
Recalling his days as a Navy aviator, McCain offered a personal perspective on comments by Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, to argue that Obama was not ready for America’s “many enemies abroad in this dangerous world.”
Biden predicted at a fundraiser in Seattle on Sunday that, if elected, Obama would be tested in an international crisis early in his administration, just as John Kennedy was tested by Soviet leaders in the Cuban missile crisis.
McCain, 72, said he “sat in the cockpit” of a bomber aboard the flight deck of the USS Enterprise at the height of the crisis.
“I had a target,” he said. “My friends, you know how close we came.”
Obama, he argued, “won’t have the right response” in a crisis.
The charge that Obama lacks experience is one that McCain and the Republicans had used early on in the campaign until the economic meltdown forced a change in priorities. National polls show that voters trust Obama more on economic issues and that financial fears have propelled him into the lead, though some polls show the race tightening.
Campaigning in Florida, one of the battleground states that could decide the election, Obama noted that the state lost a net 11,000 jobs in September alone. He blamed “eight years of greed on Wall Street and irresponsibility in Washington” and argued that “when we spend $10 billion a month in Iraq, that means less money to fix crumbling roads and bridges here at home.”
With Florida and 20 other states facing budget shortfalls, Obama also blamed the White House — and his rival — for ignoring pleas for help.
“While President Bush and Sen. McCain were ready to move heaven and earth to address the crisis on Wall Street, President Bush has failed to address the crisis on Main Street — and Sen. McCain has failed to fully acknowledge it,” Obama said.
McCain, as he has done repeatedly in recent days, took aim earlier in Bensalem, Pa., at Obama’s tax plan, claiming that it would redistribute the wealth, as an Ohio man who came to be known as Joe the Plumber suggested in his famous encounter with the senator from Illinois. Although Obama has said his plan would give tax relief to 95 percent of families, McCain claimed that it would tax small businesses at “the worst possible time for America, and especially for small businesses like the one Joe dreams of owning.”
Responding to McCain’s attack, Obama said, “You know, it’s funny — yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say that I’m more concerned with who gets your piece of the pie than with growing the pie. But make no mistake about it, after eight years of Bush-McCain economics, the pie is shrinking, it’s not growing. That means lower wages and declining incomes and plummeting home values and rising unemployment.”
Palin to give deposition in official’s firing
Palin, already found by one investigation to have abused her power, on Friday will give a deposition in a second inquiry into her firing of the state’s top public safety official.
It will be the first deposition in the affair by the Republican vice presidential candidate. Friday’s depositions are part of an investigation by the Alaska Personnel Board.
The Legislature’s investigator, former Anchorage prosecutor Stephen Branchflower, found that Palin violated ethics laws in attempts to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired. The trooper, Mike Wooten, had gone through a contentious divorce with Palin’s sister. But Branchflower found Palin was within her right to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan.
Monegan had said he was dismissed for refusing to fire Wooten, but Palin has denied that. She said she fired Monegan over budget disagreements.
Palin charged Alaska to have children on trips
Palin charged Alaska for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business, an Associated Press investigation has found.
The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.
In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.
Alaska law does not specifically address expenses for a governor’s children. The law allows for payment of expenses for anyone conducting official state business.
State Finance Director Kim Garnero said she has not reviewed the Palins’ travel expense forms, so she could not say whether the daughters’ travel with their mother would meet the definition of official business.
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