Obama, McCain focus on battleground states
— -- Barack Obama said Monday that former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who endorsed his candidacy for president this weekend, will be one of his top advisers and could play a formal role if he chooses.
"Whether he wants to take a formal role, whether that's a good fit for him, is something we'd have to discuss," the Democratic nominee said Monday on NBC's Today Show.
"I won't lie to you, I would love to have him at any stop," Obama said. "Obviously, if he wants to show up he's got an open invitation."
John McCain, the Republican candidate and a longtime friend of Powell, said Sunday he was not surprised by the endorsement, but noted that he had the support of four other former secretaries of state, all veterans of Republican administrations: Henry Kissinger, James A. Baker III, Lawrence Eagleburger and Alexander Haig.
Today, both campaigns are keeping their eyes focused solidly on the key battleground states as they move into the last two weeks of campaigning.
The Republican campaigned in Missouri before heading back to Pennsylvania, his campaign's primary target among traditionally Democratic states.
"My friends, we need Missouri on Nov. 4 and with your help we're going to win Missouri and bring real change to Washington, D.C.," McCain said at a rally in a St. Louis suburb. "We have 15 days to go. We're a few points down. The national media has written us off —as they have several times in the past."
McCain's running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, will make three campaign appearances in Colorado on Monday, as she wraps up a swing through the Southwest.
Obama was in Florida for two stops in the traditionally GOP state, including a joint appearance with Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in Orlando.
In other political developments:
•Sen. Joe Biden, Obama's running mate, released medical records to reporters that show no reason for concern about another aneurysm. The records show that the Delaware Democrat appears to be in very good health, with some of the routine issues of aging, butno evidence that he has had a brain scan to rule out completely another aneurysm like the one that required emergency lifesaving surgery 20 years ago.
•Palin acknowledges that people are "irritated" about being "inundated" by robocalls, but would not call for them to end.
The McCain campaign's automated phones calls to heavily contested states have emphasized Obama's relationship with a '60s radical.
"If I called all the shots, and if I could wave a magic wand," Palin told reporters traveling with her on Sunday, "I would be sitting at a kitchen table with more and more Americans, talking to them about our plan to get the economy back on track and winning the war, and not having to rely on the old conventional ways of campaigning that includes those robocalls …"
•In response to Palin's comments on robocalls, Obama, who has accused the McCain campaign of running misleading ads, took a swipe at his opponents over what he called negative tactics.
"It's getting so bad that even Senator McCain's running mate denounced his tactics last night," Obama told a rally in Tampa. "You know, you really have to work hard to violate Governor Palin's standards on negative campaigning."
•McCain says he expects a very close contest on Nov. 4.
"We're going to be in a tight race and we're going to be up late on election night. That's just — I'm confident of that. I've been in too many campaigns, my friend, not to sense that things are headed our way," McCain said Sunday on Fox News.
The Arizona senator acknowledged being behind in the polls, but said: "I love being the underdog. You know, every time that I've gotten ahead, somehow I've messed it up."
•Palin and her husband, Todd Palin, will meet this week with an investigator determining whether she violated state ethics law when firing her public safety director.
Thomas Van Flein, the attorney for both Sarah and Todd Palin, said Sunday the separate depositions by an attorney for the Alaska Personnel Board will be held out of state. The investigator, Timothy Petumenos, will fly to meet the Palins.
Meanwhile, Palin's interview with David Brody, of the Christian Broadcast Network, will be broadcast Tuesday.
In the interview, Palin said she had not personally heard some of the "pretty atrocious" anti-Obama comments reportedly shouted at some of her rallies, but that if she does she will tell the crowd "that's unacceptable."
On other points:
•She hasn't given any interviews with some of the cable news networks because "it just doesn't do any good."
"I mean you set yourself up just to continually be mocked, you know so sometimes that doesn't do any good," she said. " Instead, she said, he was "reaching out to the American voters" through rallies and small meetings "minus the filter of the mainstream media."
• Palin called Obama's position on abortion "extreme" and completely the other side of McCain and her.
"It's so, so far left that it's way out of the mainstream," Palin told Brody.
Contributing: Douglas Stanglin, in McLean, Va.; The Associated Press