National News
McCain tries to turn must-win states; Obama stays on offense
CNN -- As they enter their final day of campaigning before Election Day, Sen. John McCain is trying to swing undecided voters in key battleground states, while Sen. Barack Obama is staying on the offensive by campaigning in territory that is usually safely Republican.
In addition, both campaigns are ratcheting up their get-out-the-vote efforts, as election officials predict record turnouts -- and long lines -- on Tuesday.
McCain on Monday hopes he can shift enough voters in a handful of critical states to give him enough votes to pull a come-from-behind victory.
He has an uphill climb. There are very few undecided voters left, and McCain will have to sway most of them for him to overcome Obama's lead. The latest national CNN poll of polls has Obama ahead of McCain 51 percent to 44 percent, with 5 percent undecided.
McCain has also lost ground to Obama in the race for electoral votes and needs to win a number of battleground states if he is to deny Obama the White House.
Going into Election Day, CNN estimates that Obama will win 291 electoral votes while McCain will win 157, with 90 electoral votes up for grabs. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
On Monday morning, McCain began a seven-state blitz with a rally in Tampa, Florida. He then heads to Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada. McCain ends the day in his home state of Arizona.
Except for Tennessee and Arizona, McCain either trails or is tied in the states he is visiting, according to recent polling.
Putting Pennsylvania in the Republican column Tuesday night is especially critical to the Republican effort, as there are few paths McCain can take to get to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election without Pennsylvania's 21 electoral votes.
Turning Pennsylvania from blue to red may be difficult for McCain. CNN's poll of polls calculated Monday shows Obama leading McCain 51 percent to 43 percent in the state, with 6 percent unsure. The McCain campaign, however, says that their own polling suggests that the Pennsylvania race is tighter than published polls suggest.
McCain might be able to pull it off, however, by emphasizing his conservative message to independent voters, in Pennsylvania and the other battleground states, who are worried what Democrats would do if they controlled both Congress and the White House.
In a sign that he hopes not only to win the election Tuesday night but also, possibly, transform the political landscape, Obama is also starting the day in Florida, a state President Bush won in 2000 and 2004, with a rally in Jacksonville. CNN's latest polls of polls shows Obama with a slight lead over McCain in Florida, 48 percent to 46 percent, with 6 percent unsure.
The Illinois Democrat then heads to two other states that Bush won but where he is leading: North Carolina and Virginia. CNN's poll of polls has Obama leading McCain by 1 point in North Carolina, 49 percent to 48 percent, with 3 percent unsure. In Virginia, Obama is leading McCain 50 percent to 45 percent, with 5 percent unsure, according to the latest CNN poll of polls there.
Besides making last-minute pitches to undecided voters, both campaigns are ramping up their efforts to get their supporters to the polls.
Unlike previous years, the Democrats' efforts to get their supporters to the polls are much more organized than the Republicans', said Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist.
"We have always won the early efforts. ... The Democrats have beat us at our own game more severely than ever dreamed possible," said Rollins, who served as President Ronald Reagan's political director. "They've gone out, they have intensity. People feel a real part of this process. People are willing to stand in line whether two weeks ago or tomorrow. I think voters are going to vote."
The Republicans, in comparison, "look like the party of the telegraph in this election," Avlon said.
"They're not as tech savvy or getting out the vote as much. On the ground game, in addition to all the momentum Obama has got, the ground game could prove decisive," he said.
While enthusiasm among Democrats is high, Angela Burt-Murray, the editor of Essence magazine, said Democrats are worried that problems at the polls or efforts to suppress the vote could lower the number of voters who turn out for Obama.
Burt-Murray noted that one flier circulating in an African-American community in Richmond, Virginia, falsely told voters they could vote on Wednesday, November 5, due to the expected long lines on Election Day.
"There is certainly a lot of passion out there right now for the Obama campaign. But there are also significant challenges they're facing," she said.
Palin: 'Far-left wing of the Democrat Party’ could takeover
LAKEWOOD, Ohio (CNN) – With her voice beginning to crack on this final marathon day of campaigning, Sarah Palin promised an audience in Ohio: “We will win!”
“You can just feel it here,” she said at a rally in the Cleveland suburbs. “You can just feel it here in Ohio, victory's coming, we can do this, we can win, we can win Ohio. And we must win for you.”
The crowd chanted “We will win! We will win!” throughout her remarks. At one point, Palin warned with urgency: “We must win.”
“We must win,” she said, “because Ohio, the far-left wing of the Democrat Party, not mainstream Democrat ideology, the values, the planks in the platform of the Democrat Party. It's the far-left wing of the party is getting ready to take over the entire federal government.”
Palin again accused Barack Obama of wanting to bankrupt the coal industry, citing an interview the Democrat gave to the San Francisco Chronicle in January in which he discussed his “aggressive” cap-and-trade proposal to limit carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.
“Just yesterday, revelation, an audiotape surfaces,” Palin argued, despite the fact that the Obama interview has been posted online for nine months. “People are starting to hear in his own words what Sen. Obama’s intention is for the coal industry. You got to hear this tape. You’re going to hear Obama saying it, talking about bankruptcy, bankruptcy there in the coal industry. He’s explaining all this to the San Francisco Chronicle, and he says …”
Palin was interrupted by an audience member who shouted “Liberal!”
She continued: “And there must be something about San Francisco and he because it’s like I heard on Fox News today, it’s like a truth serum where when he’s there, he seems to be more candid, and remember it was there that he talked about, there you go, the bitter clingers, the cling-ons, all of us, I guess, you know holding on to religion and guns and, um, so something about he being there in San Francisco.”
Obama says attacks on wife 'completely out of bounds'
CNN – Looking back at his two-year marathon for the presidency, Barack Obama told CBS he was most angered by "right-wing" attacks on his wife, Michelle, and said many of them were "completely out of bounds."
"I do believe there is a Republican or right-wing media outlet, or set of media outlets, that went after my wife for a while in a way that I thought was just completely out of bounds," Obama told CBS' Katie Couric in an interview that aired Monday morning.
"Frankly, I would never have considered or expected my allies to do something comparable to the spouse of an opponent. I just feel like family are civilians."
Mrs. Obama took particular heat from conservative circles for comments she made during the primary season, when she said that for the first time in her adult life "I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback." Those comments were highlighted by several Republican state party chapters in an effort to paint the potential first lady as angry, leading the Democratic presidential nominee to call on them to "lay off my wife" in an ABC interview in May.
Mrs. Obama was also been labeled "Obama's baby mama," by Fox News and "Mrs. Grievance" by the conservative National Review. Some conservative outlets also buzzed last summer about the possibility of a tape, which has never appeared, that showed her using the word "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church. The Obama campaign said Mrs. Obama had never uttered the word and that no tape existed.
"I just feel like family are civilians, and they don't sign up for this stuff… They really should be bystanders in this process, even if they're campaigning for you," Obama told CBS in the interview that aired Monday.
Protesters make noise at Biden event
TALLAHASSEE, Florida (CNN) – Just two days after completing a three-day bus tour of central and southern Florida, Joe Biden is back in the state for three events Sunday, this time in the north as part of campaign’s final battleground state push before Tuesday’s election.
On the campus of Florida State University Sunday morning, Biden continued to deliver the campaign’s ‘closing arguments’ that include a plea to supporters to reach out to Republicans after the election in order to bridge the partisan divide.
For the first time since being named the Democratic vice presidential nominee, a small group of McCain and Palin supporters tried to interrupt the Delaware senator’s remarks from the public sidewalk about 150 yards from the podium. Their chants inaudible through a megaphone, they took to using the device’s siren to disrupt.
Biden referred to “the people in the parking lot” four times, using them as an example of those that Democrats will have to reach out to after Tuesday.
“I mean it literally. Not a joke. I know you find some of that obnoxious,” said Biden. “We gotta end this. Somebody's got to be big enough to stand up and end this.”
There’s also a practical reason, Biden argued, legislation won't be able to pass without bi-partisan support.
“You think we're going to get education reform? You think we're going to re-establish and end this war and re-establish our place in the world without getting a significant portion of Republicans to agree with us as well? No one party can do this.”
Barack Obama and Biden have been targeting McCain and Palin over the past two days for the endorsement they received from Dick Cheney on Saturday, asking if any more proof is needed that this Republican ticket would be a continuation of the Bush-Cheney administration.
“Folks, John McCain and Sarah Palin can have Dick Cheney’s endorsement,” said Biden, We’ll settle for people like Warren Buffett and Colin Powell.”
After Sunday in Florida, Biden continues the swing state tour in the campaign’s final hours, heading to Missouri Monday morning, Ohio in the afternoon and Philadelphia at night. After voting at home in Wilmington Tuesday morning, he will visit at least one more swing state before joining Barack Obama in Chicago.
