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VIENNA, Ohio: John McCain accused White House foe Barack Obama of
siding with “A-list” stars at a dollar-soaked Hollywood
fundraiser instead of with hard-hit voters trapped by the economic
malaise.
The latest fierce campaign crossfire came
Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) as Democrat Obama and Republican
McCain slugged it out over the Wall Street meltdown, both promising
a regulatory crackdown 48 days from election day.
Earlier, Obama had chided McCain for saying the
US economy was fundamentally “strong” despite rising job losses,
a rash of mortgage foreclosures and a banking and investment crisis
which has reverberated around the world.
McCain made his counterattack as he was reunited
with his running mate Sarah Palin at a rally in economically
struggling rustbelt Ohio, a vital battleground state that decided
the 2004 presidential election.
The Arizona senator said Obama “talked about
siding with the people, just before he flew off to Hollywood for a
fundraiser with Barbra Streisand and his celebrity friends.”
“Let me tell you, my friends, there’s no
place I’d rather be than here with the working men and women of
Ohio.”
“Senator Obama’s not interested in the
politics of hope, he’s interested in his political future.”
McCain was referring to an exclusive Obama
fundraiser Tuesday night in swank Beverly Hills, where hundreds of
Hollywood high rollers spent $28,500 each to get in the door to be
serenaded by Streisand, a famous Democratic supporter.
The fundraiser could reportedly raise about $9
million—a record take for a single night.
McCain’s camp has repeatedly branded Obama a
hubristic “celebrity” trying to paint him as out of touch with
grassroots values and daily struggles.
Barack battles back
But Obama’s staff said McCain was on shaky
ground, as he was flush with $5 million in his own big fundraising
event.
“I don’t know who showed up in Florida where
he raised $5 million, but my guess is that it wasn’t a lot of
nurses, firefighters and police officers,” Obama’s top
strategist David Axelrod told reporters on Tuesday.
Obama and McCain have both vowed to crack down
on Wall Street excess—but slammed one another as unfit to fix the
economy.
The financial crisis has “reminded people that
this is not a game,” Obama said in Beverly Hills.
“This is not a reality show, no offense to any
of you,” Obama said to laughter. “This is not a sitcom.”
Earlier in Colorado he told supporters that the
crisis “is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic
philosophy that has completely failed.”
A new Obama ad repeatedly showed McCain’s
remark in Florida on Tuesday that the economy was fundamentally
“strong” superimposed with news-style captions detailing current
economic woes.
McCain’s message
But in Florida, McCain, who has a slim 1-percent
lead over Obama in latest tracking polls, denounced the
“recklessness of Wall Street” and called for an investigation
similar to the one that probed the September 11 attacks in 2001.
“People have a right to know when their jobs,
pensions, investments, and our whole economy are being put at risk
by the recklessness of Wall Street,” he said.
McCain, who critics said has tended to oppose
robust regulation of financial firms, was hampered Wednesday by
several apparent missteps by top advisors.
Economic aide Doug Holtz-Eakin said McCain was
partly responsible for the “miracle” of the BlackBerry wireless
e-mail device, stirring a flurry reminiscent of Al Gore’s claims
to have helped develop the Internet.
Obama’s campaign pounced: “If John McCain
hadn’t said that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’
on the day of one of our nation’s worst financial crises, the
claim that he invented the BlackBerry would have been the most
preposterous thing he said all week,” said spokesman Bill Burton.
Then, Carly Fiorina, another top McCain economy
guru and former Hewlett-Packard chief executive, stumbled.
Asked on Missouri radio whether she thought
Palin could run a major company, Fiorina replied, “No, I
don’t.”
“But you know what? That’s not what she’s
running for.”
Asked later by MSNBC if she regretted her
comment, Fiorina replied: “Well, I don’t think John McCain could
run a major corporation,” before adding that neither Obama nor his
running mate Joseph Biden had such skills either.
Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor wondered why
Fiorina then thought McCain could run the world’s biggest economy
in the midst of a crisis.
-- AFP
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