Last dash toward the prize
McCain, Obama woo pivotal states for today's voting
CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Senators Barack Obama and John McCain worked furiously yesterday to sway late-deciding voters on the final full day of their historic battle for the White House, capping a campaign in which the candidates fought conventional skirmishes on deeply unconventional political terrain.
Obama and McCain closed out the final sprint of the marathon with intensive pushes across a half-dozen states likely to determine today's election. McCain raced defensively through a series of states President Bush won in 2004. Obama, sobered by his 86-year-old grandmother's death early yesterday, finished with three rallies in Republican bastions - Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia - that reflected his push to expand the Democrat map.
Continuing the sharp attacks right to the finish line, the two candidates delivered arguments yesterday that were more urgent versions of the highly partisan messages they have been hitting hard for weeks: Obama, the Democratic nominee, asserted that Republicans are siding with Wall Street barons and Fortune 500 companies over middle-class families, while McCain, the GOP nominee, warned that Democrats' spending plans would send America into another depression.
"Tax and spend, tax and spend," McCain said at an airport hangar in Blountville, Tenn., a stop targeting media markets in southwest Virginia and northwest North Carolina. "That's what they're all about, my friends."
Twice in one speech, he accused Obama of being in the "far-left lane of American politics," and at each stop took aim at Democratic congressional leaders, including Representative Barney Frank of Newton, Mass., as readily as he pointed at the nominee himself.
"Watch out, they're even talking about taxing your 401(k) contributions," McCain said at Pittsburgh International Airport. "I'm going to protect people's retirement, not tax it. I'm going to protect Social Security. I'm going to protect Medicare."
Even as Obama told voters it was time to move beyond the "old arguments" between Republicans and Democrats that have generated so much Washington gridlock, the Illinois senator, drawing on the central plank of his candidacy, sought to paint McCain as an out-of-touch Republican who cared more about the wealthy than he did average workers.
At his first rally, in front of more than 9,000 people at Jacksonville's Veterans Memorial Arena, Obama hammered McCain anew for saying, in the same setting on Sept. 15, that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."
"That day, more than 5,000 jobs were lost, more than 7,000 homes were foreclosed on," said Obama, whose stump speech was repeatedly interrupted by chants of "O-BA-MA" and "Yes we can!"
"The day before, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said we were in a 'once in a century' crisis," he continued. "Florida, you and I know that not only was John McCain fundamentally wrong, it sums up the fact that he's out of touch."
When boos filled the arena, Obama used a rejoinder he has employed at nearly every rally over the past week: "You don't need to boo. You just need to vote."
The back-and-forth over taxes and the economy is one of several familiar disputes that McCain and Obama - both of whom portray themselves as politicians unburdened by the usual left-right divides - have sparred over throughout their campaign. The candidates have veered little from their party lines on trade (McCain embraces it, Obama wants more protections for American workers); on healthcare (McCain favors a market approach, Obama calls for more government involvement); and on foreign policy (McCain talks tough, Obama emphasizes diplomacy).
But if their policy clashes resemble those in past elections, their battlefield most certainly does not. In any other recent presidential contest, it would be impossible to imagine a Democratic candidate spending the eve of the election in North Carolina, which last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate 32 years ago, and Virginia, which last did so 44 years ago. But polls suggest Obama has a shot at winning both states, and he hoped a final exclamation point might make the difference.
Yesterday evening, Obama revved up about 25,000 supporters on the campus of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte who braved pouring rain to hear his last-minute appeals.
"I know it's a little drizzly and you've been standing here getting wet," he said.
"That's all right - you worth it!" a woman screamed back.
"When we started 21 months ago," Obama continued, "I didn't know how it would turn out. And no matter what happens . . . I'm going to feel good about how it's turned out, because all of you have created this incredible campaign."
Of the 20 events Obama held in the final full week of campaigning, just one - a rally outside Philadelphia a week ago - was in a state that Democrat John F. Kerry won in 2004. The rest were in the traditional battlegrounds of Florida and Ohio, but also newly competitive Colorado, Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, and Virginia.
The capstone of Obama's almost two years of campaigning was a late-night rally in Manassas, Va., outside Washington, D.C., in Prince William County, which Bush won by 7 percentage points in 2004.
Obama, seeming to soak up every minute of his final rally, asked 90,000 people - many of whom had waited hours to see him - to show the same grit and determination today. "It starts here in Virginia," he said, to roars from the crowed. "This is where change begins."
McCain, who has followed a lighter schedule than Obama, approached the last tour of his nearly 18-month campaign as a chance to catch up with a grueling seven-state swing yesterday. He asserted confidence about his chances today in the face of what polls suggest are long odds. "There's just one day left until we take America in a new direction," McCain told a raucous, salsa-paced midnight rally in Miami alongside actor Kelsey Grammer and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback.
From there, he launched a 20-hour fly-around covering a range of political terrain, from Tampa, a booming coastal metropolis rich in suburban independents to Prescott, the old territorial capital of his native Arizona, a state that has become competitive in the campaign's closing weeks.
Fueled by coffee and fried chicken, McCain grew both hoarse and punchier as his long day went on. "Joe Lieberman and Joe the plumber are the best!" he exulted at one point.
With the exception of Pennsylvania, all the states where McCain campaigned yesterday voted for Bush in 2004. He is expected to visit another, Colorado, while voters are at the polls today.
Obama will spend Election Night in Chicago, but plans a quick side trip to the Indianapolis area to greet voters midday. His campaign is expressing confidence in its turnout operation.
In a radio interview yesterday, Obama said he was calm, befitting a candidate ahead in the polls.
"I feel pretty peaceful, I gotta say," he said on the "Russ Parr Morning Show." "Because my attitude is if we've done everything we can do, then it's up to the people to decide. And the question is going to be who wants it more. And I hope that our supporters want it bad, because I think the country needs it."
Scott Helman reported from the Obama campaign and can be reached at shelman@globe.com; Sasha Issenberg reported from the McCain campaign and can be reached at sissenberg@ globe.com. 