Candidates confront Wall Street turmoil

GOLDEN, Colo. – Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain called Tuesday for a commission to determine how Wall Street got suckered by “greed and corruption,” but his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, said the country needs action, not studies that would allow the government to duck its responsibilities.

As Wall Street continued to reel from a day of turmoil in the financial sector, the presidential candidates tried to capitalize by expressing outrage over “greed” and by demonstrating that they are in touch with anxious Americans.

“This isn’t 9/11. We know how we got in this mess. What we need is leadership to get us out,” Mr. Obama told a standing-room-only crowd at the Colorado School of Mines, rejecting Mr. McCain’s call for a Sept. 11-style commission to examine economic failings.

Obama, McCain duel over market turmoil

GOLDEN, Colo. — The presidential nominees escalated their fight Tuesday to gain an edge in light of the economic downturn, as John McCain called for the creation of a commission to probe the financial market crisis and Barack Obama rejected the proposal as an attempt to “pass the buck.”

It was the second consecutive day that the campaigns sparred almost entirely over the economy, ratcheting up the pressure on McCain and Obama, neither of whom has established dominance of the issue, to gain the upper hand on a top concern for voters.

There were sideshows, of course, but even those dealt with the economy.

The Obama campaign blasted out comments from top McCain economic adviser Carly Fiorina, who said Tuesday that neither McCain nor his running mate is qualified to lead a large corporation. (She said the same about the Democratic candidates.)

McCain, Obama offer little on economy

The two presidential candidates on Monday put aside their heated debate over pig lipstick and returned to the issue most dear to Americans – the economy – but neither offered any new ideas for ending the financial crisis on Wall Street.

In a dizzying day of dueling statements and rapid-response rebuttals, Sen. John McCain said his long experience in Washington makes him better suited to combat Wall Street’s greed and corruption. Sen. Barack Obama, meanwhile, blamed Republican policies for the crisis and claimed he would target aid to middle-class America most hurt by the current financial meltdown.

Yet as they spoke, evidence emerged that the economic fiasco had outgrown government intervention, and their words failed to quell a record plunge of the Dow, which apparently didn’t care that both presidential candidates openly oppose a sputtering U.S. economy.

Obama descends on Pa. to woo key voters

PITTSBURGH — The tightening race in this must-win state spurred a blitz by Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign to woo back female and independent voters as the candidate’s surrogates went on the attack against Republican vice-presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin.

“She’s a lightweight,” said Pittsburgh City Council President Doug Shields, a prominent campaigner for Mr. Obama. “Let’s get people off the idea of Palin, Palin, Palin.”

He is working door to door in an effort to turn off voters for the Alaska governor in surrounding Allegheny County, a rural and mostly conservative area where the hockey mom likely picked up support for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain. Mirroring national trends, Mrs. Palin’s appeal proved a new wrinkle for the Obama campaign in the county, which went heavily for his rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, in the primary and has yet to coalesce behind the Democratic nominee.

Republican ticket builds up in key swing state

Voter trust in Sen. John McCain and enthusiasm for running mate Gov. Sarah Palin have vaulted the Republican presidential ticket into a slight lead in the crucial battleground state of Ohio, according to a new poll.

The McCain-Palin ticket leads Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and vice presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden by 46 percent to 42 percent, according to a new Suffolk University voter poll conducted Sept. 10-13. The two parties are waging a fierce struggle in the swing state which provided the Electoral College votes that ensured President Bush’s re-election in 2004.

“McCain benefits from voter identification and empathy, as well as a greater sense of voter trust in McCain himself,” said David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk University in Boston.

Some 31 percent of the likely voters polled said Mrs. Palin, governor of Alaska, is more like them than are any of the other candidates, while 22 percent said Mr. Obama was more like them. Mr. McCain followed with 21 percent and 13 percent named Mr. Biden.

As for which candidate they trusted more, sampled voters chose Mr. McCain over Mr. Obama by an eight-point margin, 49 percent to 41 percent. By an even larger margin, 41 percent to 31 percent, they said the Arizona senator is more likely than the Illinois senator to fulfill his pledge to lower taxes.

Mr. McCain has led in six of the seven polls conducted in Ohio since the two conventions concluded, with a lead ranging from 1 to 7 percentage points. No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio.

As its early polling lead evaporated, the Obama campaign has dropped plans to contest all 50 states and is concentrating instead on traditional swing states that have decided most of the recent close elections.

Mr. Obama has cut back sharply, for example, on his Georgia operations to focus money and manpower in states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The new Suffolk University poll also is one of the first to show a voter backlash over what is perceived to be condescending treatment of Mrs. Palin, a first-term governor, by the press and by political opponents since her surprise selection last month. The news coverage has been a sore point with women in general and Republican women in particular.

In the survey, 38 percent of respondents overall said the news media have been too harsh toward Mrs. Palin, and 23 percent said the press coverage had been fair.

“When you separate out the target group of voters who are the most undecided now — I mean the self-described independents — the difference is more dramatic. By a lopsided 42 percent to 6 percent they think the media treat her harshly rather than fairly,” Mr. Paleologos told The Washington Times.

The poll of 600 randomly selected Ohio voters had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Republican ticket builds up in key swing state

Voter trust in Sen. John McCain and enthusiasm for running mate Gov. Sarah Palin have vaulted the Republican presidential ticket into a slight lead in the crucial battleground state of Ohio, according to a new poll.

The McCain-Palin ticket leads Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and vice presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden by 46 percent to 42 percent, according to a new Suffolk University voter poll conducted Sept. 10-13. The two parties are waging a fierce struggle in the swing state which provided the Electoral College votes that ensured President Bush’s re-election in 2004.

“McCain benefits from voter identification and empathy, as well as a greater sense of voter trust in McCain himself,” said David Paleologos, director of the Political Research Center at Suffolk University in Boston.

Clinton tries to win back women for Obama

AKRON, Ohio | Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who in a brutal Democratic primary fight drove a wedge between female voters and Sen. Barack Obama in this critical electoral state, worked to repair the damage Sunday and stem a recent shift of white female voters to the Republican ticket.

”Barack and I may have started out on two separate paths, but we are on one journey now,” she told an enthusiastic crowd made up mostly of white women. “With your help, it will lead straight to the White House.”

She bashed the Republican ticket – presidential nominee Sen. John McCain and running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin – for promising “more of the same” policies of President Bush that she said cost Ohio manufacturing jobs, left many without health insurance and made big oil companies richer while the middle class grew poorer.

Obama raises a record $66 million in August

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama shattered the fund-raising records his campaign set this spring by raising $66 million in August.

The sum was helped by more than 500,000 new donors, bringing the total number of people giving to the Illinois senator’s White House bid to more than 2.5 million, the campaign said Sunday.

Mr. Obama has more than $77 million on hand to spend before the Nov. 4 election, and he has vastly outraised his Republican rival Sen. John McCain.