Obama tries to wrest McCain's "Straight Talk" mantle

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - White House hopeful Barack Obama sought on Saturday to wrest away rival John McCain's campaign theme, casting himself as the "Straight Talk" candidate willing to level with voters about tough choices facing the country.

In recent days, Democrat Obama has been hammering away at the presumptive Republican nominee over his plan to offer voters a temporary "holiday" from the gasoline tax.

McCain, an Arizona senator, says the holiday is needed to give cash-strapped consumers relief from surging costs at the fuel pump during the busy driving season.

Campaigning in Indiana, Obama said the gas tax reprieve would barely help Americans' budgets and would not address the long-term problem of U.S. addiction to Middle East oil.

"It's a shell game -- literally," Obama told an audience at an Indianapolis high school. "If we want to take a permanent holiday from our oil addiction, we can finally get serious about energy independence."

As he tried to retool his message after a series of setbacks and sliding poll numbers, Obama also targeted Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's support of the tax holiday. The two face primary elections on Tuesday in North Carolina and Indiana, the next steps in their protracted struggle for the right to run against McCain in the November election.

Clinton, a New York senator, told a rally in Wake Forest, North Carolina, "These prices that are going up from ... gas prices, to grocery prices, are really taking a big chunk out of people's disposable income.

"I think that it's imperative that we try to obtain some immediate relief."

Obama said his own proposals to raise car fuel mileage standards and spur investment in energy-efficient technology were better ways to "free ourselves from the whims of Middle East dictators" and give consumers longer-lasting relief.

"This is what passes for leadership in Washington -- phony ideas, calculated to win elections instead of actually solving problems."

Obama did not say the words "Straight Talk" -- an expression McCain has used for years to describe his own style of politicking. But Obama clearly suggested that he -- not McCain -- was the candidate who was willing to stand up and take principled stances even when they are not popular.

In campaign appearances over the last week, the Illinois senator has frequently used phrases like "truth-telling" and "straight talk" to describe his approach.

"Barack has the guts to tell the truth," said Obama supporter Mike Fischer, an Amtrak machinist who introduced the candidate in Indianapolis.

MCCAIN RESPONDS

Responding to Obama's speech, the McCain campaign criticized the Democrat's economic proposals and called him a tax raiser because he wants to boost capital gains taxes and would roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans.

"Barack Obama's repeated pledges to raise taxes on millions of small investors and expiring tax relief that is at work in family budgets shows he just doesn't understand the American economy," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, remains the front-runner in the Democratic race.

On Saturday night, he eked out a very narrow victory -- with 2,264 votes to 2,257 for Clinton -- in the nominating contest in the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam.

But his campaign has been hit by a slew of difficulties in recent weeks that Clinton has seized on as evidence that he would be the weaker candidate to take on McCain.

Those struggles include the re-emergence of Obama's longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who repeated assertions that the September 11 attacks were retribution for U.S. foreign policy and the government helped spread AIDS to harm blacks.

Obama this week broke with his minister of two decades, who officiated his marriage and baptized his two children.

Clinton was gaining on Obama's lead in North Carolina polls just three days before the primary. A CNN poll of polls out Saturday showed Obama has a 9-point lead, with 50 percent to Clinton's 41 percent among likely Democratic voters.

Clinton, who would be the first woman to win the White House, has raised questions about Obama's electability based on his losses to her in two big industrial states, Ohio and Pennsylvania, which may be hotly contested in November.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst and Maureen Maratita in Hagatna, Guam, editing by Doina Chiacu)