Obama, McCain duel over economy in key states
SARASOTA, Fla. -- The two major party presidential candidates, pressing closing arguments Thursday in the run-up to the Nov. 4 election, seized on separate economic reports — one on grim economy conditions and one on huge oil company profits — to argue their case for winning the White House.
Barack Obama, stumping in Florida for the second straight day, said the Commerce Department's report that the gross domestic product shrank at a 0.3% annual rate in the last quarter was "a direct result of the Bush administration's trickle down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that John McCain has embraced for the last eight years and plans to continue for the next four."
Speaking to a standing-room only crowd of about 13,000 at a Sarasota baseball field, Obama cast his Republican rival as a passenger in a car waiting to take the wheel from President Bush.
"After nine straight months of job losses, the largest drop in home values on record, wages lower than they've been in a decade, why would we keep driving down this dead-end street?" Obama asked.
The Illinois senator, who is leading in national polls, also planned to campaign in Virginia and Missouri.
McCain began a two-day bus tour of Ohio, a Midwest state critical to his hopes of amassing 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
The Arizona senator seized on a report from ExxonMobil that it had earned $14.83 billion in the third quarter, the largest profit report in the nation's history.
In an effort to draw a distinction with Obama, McCain said the Democrat's rhetoric masks his votes backing new tax breaks for the oil industry.
"Senator Obama voted $4 billions in corporate giveaways to the oil companies," said McCain, who noted that he had voted against it. "When I'm president, we're not going to let that happen," he said.
McCain, though he did not mention it specifically, was likely referring to Obama's 2005 vote on a Republican-crafted energy bill dubbed by some critics as the "Bush-Cheney energy bill." McCain voted against the legislation.
