Months later, Obama strikes new tone in Mich.

Barack Obama greeted voters yesterday after a rally in East Lansing, Mich. At another stop in the state Obama offered government aid to help the auto industry retool its factories. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The financial meltdown is hardly news in Michigan, which has been mired in its own economic crisis for some time and has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

The state's troubles are directly a result of the slowdown in the US auto industry, one that has only deepened in recent days as the credit crunch has sent new car sales plummeting.

Democrat Barack Obama, speaking to a crowd of nearly 16,000 yesterday, repeatedly expressed sympathy for automakers' plight and offered government help - not just loan guarantees but funding to retool factories so they can make fuel-efficient and alternative-fuel cars for the 21st century.

"We are going to strengthen the auto industry that built the middle class in this state," Obama said, adding that he wants "the cars of the future made in the same place they've always been made."

It was a markedly different tone than Obama struck during the Democratic primaries, when he boasted to crowds around the country that he had charged into Detroit last year and delivered a tough-love message to auto executives: We will force you to adapt by adopting higher minimum fuel-efficiency standards for cars.

SCOTT HELMAN

McCain says drop in polls is 'because life isn't fair'
Republican John McCain had a simple explanation yesterday for why polls show him falling behind Democratic rival Barack Obama as the Wall Street crisis has dominated attention:

"Because life isn't fair," McCain said with a chuckle on Fox News Channel.

He seemed to complain that Obama was reaping the benefit even though McCain asserted he tried to do more to solve the crisis. "I suspended my campaign, took our ads down, came back to Washington, met with the House folks and got on the phone, and also had face-to-face meetings."

McCain repeated the unfairness of life explanation when asked about Gwen Ifill, the moderator of last night's vice presidential debate who has come under criticism because she is writing a book featuring Obama. "Frankly, I wish they had picked a moderator that isn't writing a book favorable to Barack Obama. Let's face it," McCain said on "Fox & Friends."

"But I have to have confidence that Gwen Ifill will handle this as the professional journalist that she is. Life isn't fair, as I mentioned earlier in the program."

FOON RHEE

Negative ads nearly evenly divided among candidates
While most polls show that voters believe John McCain is running a more negative campaign than Barack Obama, a new count out yesterday suggests the candidates are running nearly equal numbers of negative TV ads in local markets.

Nielsen Media Research says that from June 3, when the Democratic primaries ended, through Sept. 7, the most recent reporting period, the McCain campaign ran 76,238 negative ads against Obama, and the Obama campaign placed 75,246 negative commercials against McCain. Viewers in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have been barraged by the most negative spots, Nielsen said.

McCain's most-aired negative ads criticized Obama on taxes, spending, and foreign oil and domestic drilling. Obama's went after McCain on the economy, the Iraq war, and the housing crisis.

FOON RHEE

Obama adviser hints that Gates might remain in post
WASHINGTON - A senior adviser to Barack Obama said yesterday that the Democrat might see Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates as a candidate to remain at the Pentagon if Obama wins the White House.

Without explicitly endorsing Gates for the job or predicting Obama's pick, Richard Danzig told reporters that Gates has exhibited leadership qualities that an Obama administration would value.

Danzig - who served as Navy secretary in the Clinton administration, is a senior national security adviser to Obama, and himself is often mentioned as a possible choice for defense secretary - cited Gates's pragmatic approach and his advocacy for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects. He said Gates has been a good defense secretary.

"He'd be an even better one in an Obama administration," Danzig said. "Why do I think that? Because many of the kinds of efforts he's made are in tune with what we are trying to do."

ASSOCIATED PRESS

McCain drops big names as potential Treasury chief
DENVER - Republican presidential candidate John McCain listed investor Warren Buffett and former eBay chief Meg Whitman yesterday as potential Treasury secretaries in his administration but declined to say whether he would consider asking current Secretary Henry Paulson to stay.

McCain noted that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had a "set term" and said as president he would decide whether to reappoint Bernanke based on economic conditions at the time.

REUTERS