Obama, McCain target working-class voters

McCain, Obama and Biden were all scheduled to appear on Sunday television news interview shows, but not Palin.

The candidates were bearing down for the last weeks of campaigning up to the Nov. 4 election, after the Republicans ended their convention in Minnesota on Thursday, a week after the Democrats convened in Colorado.

Both candidates used their conventions — where they officially accepted their parties' nominations and rallied their troops — to address vulnerabilities in their campaigns.

McCain needed to strike a precarious balance, distinguishing himself from the unpopular presidency of fellow Republican George W. Bush while not alienating the party's conservative base, which remains loyal to the president and has been skeptical of McCain.

His selection of Palin, a fierce conservative, made that task easier. Conservatives were delighted with the selection and electrified by Palin's speech Wednesday. With their support now all-but-assured, McCain has greater freedom to highlight his reputation as a maverick and distance himself from Bush — as he did in his acceptance speech Thursday.

McCain hoped that his choice of Palin might appeal to disgruntled female supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who lost to Obama in a marathon primary campaign.

Obama entered his convention needing to heal a party still divided after his bitter primary fight with Clinton. He got a boost when Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, gave him their unqualified backing in widely watched convention speeches.

Hillary Clinton in Florida
Hillary Clinton was set to arrive Monday in Florida to campaign as a surrogate for Obama, with a message honed on Americans' everyday economic concerns that helped her win 18 million votes, but not the nomination.

The selection of Biden, the scrappy chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, addressed two of Obama's perceived weaknesses: his lack of foreign affairs and national security experience and his difficulty of relating to white working class voters.

Both McCain and Obama announced Saturday that they will put aside partisan politics for a joint appearance Thursday at ground zero to mark the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The rival presidential candidates also agreed to suspend television advertising critical of each other on Sept. 11.

"All of us came together on 9/11 — not as Democrats or Republicans — but as Americans," they said. "We were united as one American family. On Thursday, we will put aside politics and come together to renew that unity."

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