BARACK OBAMA and John McCain clashed over taxation and the economy yesterday as new polls showed the Democrat opening up big leads in key battleground states, writes Denis Staunton
After an early morning rally in Indiana, Mr Obama left the campaign trail yesterday to visit his gravely ill grandmother in Hawaii for two days. He told the 35,000-strong crowd in Indiana that Mr McCain's plan to cut corporate tax rates to 25 per cent from 35 per cent was a giveaway to big business at the expense of ordinary Americans.
"Well, Indiana, my opponent may call that 'fundamental economics', but we know that's just another name for the Wall Street first, Main Street last kind of economic philosophy we've had for the past eight years - and that's fundamentally wrong," Mr Obama said. "If Senator McCain wants to defend tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, that's his choice. But I say let's end tax cuts for companies that ship American jobs overseas, and give them to companies that create good jobs right here in Indiana - in the United States of America."
Indiana has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964 and Mr Obama's appearance there yesterday reflects the shape of a race that is being fought almost exclusively on Republican turf. New polls yesterday showed Mr Obama ahead by 10 points in Indiana, by 12 points in Ohio, and by five points in Florida. Two new polls gave the Democrat a double-digit lead in Pennsylvania, the only one of the big states John Kerry won in 2004 that Mr McCain is targeting.
Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania are the largest swing states and no presidential candidate has won an election since 1960 without taking at least two of them.
"To overcome Senator Obama's lead in Ohio, Senator McCain would have to get virtually every voter who remains undecided plus almost all of the Obama supporters who said they still might change their minds," said Peter Brown, assistant director of polling at Quinnipiac, which puts Mr Obama 15 points ahead in the state.
Campaigning in Florida yesterday, Mr McCain continued to focus on Mr Obama's tax policy, arguing that the Democrat would weaken the US economy and use taxation to redistribute wealth.
"He's more concerned about using taxes to spread the wealth than creating a tax plan that creates jobs and grows our economy," Mr McCain said.
"We'll restore this economy, get it on track and we won't do it by 'spreading the wealth' around and increasing somebody's taxes and take one group of Americans' money and give it to another. We've seen that movie before."
Mr McCain seized on remarks by one of Mr Obama's economic advisers to suggest that the Democrat would "say anything to get elected". Obama adviser Austen Goolsbee said this week that citizens who pay no federal income tax would be required to work if they are to receive a refundable tax credit.
"This week we learned that Senator Obama is concerned that his plan of wealth redistribution is seen as welfare," Mr McCain said.
"So he just added a work requirement. Twelve days to go, 13 days to go in this election, he changed his tax plan because the American people have learned the truth about it and they didn't like it."
Democratic running mate Joe Biden suggested yesterday that Mr McCain was losing control in the waning days of the campaign.
"What worries me most is the McCain campaign seems to have gotten a little loose," Mr Biden said.
"John's getting a little loose. He doesn't have much of a steady hand these days. Now is the time we most need a steady hand."
Mr Obama's decision to leave the campaign trail at such a late stage in the race is unusual but he told CBS that he had always regretted his failure to rush to his mother's bedside before she died aged 53. Mr Obama, who was partly raised by his grandmother in Honolulu, said he did not want to make the same mistake twice.
"My grandmother's the last one left," he said.