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WASHINGTON, D.C.: Barack Obama was to move his campaign to the
industrial Midwest on Sunday, as the Democratic nominee and his
Republican rival, 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 $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 $675-million measure
for Chrysler in 1980.
On Sunday, Obama went after Republican nominee
McCain at a rally in North Carolina, saying he had come across in
the first of three debate clashes Saturday as out of touch on the
economic and national security perils facing America.
McCain spent most of the day Sunday holed up in
his campaign office and apartment outside Washington, D.C. making a
flurry of calls designed to help seal a $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 to 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 November 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 ‘middleclass’—not
once.”
McCain’s movements
McCain flew directly back to Washington, D.C.
after the debate at the University of Mississippi to throw himself
back into the search for a deal in Congress on a Wall Street bailout
before the financial markets open today.
He spoke to President George W. Bush, Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke, as
well as top Republican members of Congress, his campaign chief said.
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.
“He can effectively do what he needs to do by
phone,” said McCain’s senior advisor Mark Salter.
“He is calling members of both sides, people
in the administration . . . helping out as he can,” Salter said.
Obama fires back
But the Obama campaign immediately sent out a
statement questioning McCain’s strategy.
“If this is the case, why did Senator McCain
suspend his campaign?” asked Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor.
The Obama campaign also pointed out that McCain
stayed cloistered in the US capital, with his campaign on hold,
while the Illinois senator spoke to 20,000 people in North Carolina.
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
slim 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.
-- AFP
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