Obama charges McCain trying to divide country

Polls show the Democrat is pushing ahead in key battleground states as stock markets plunge and economic crisis grips the country. This has created even steeper political challenges for Republicans who have held the White House for the past eight years.

Obama's campaign issued a statement Thursday that said: "It's now clear that John McCain would rather launch angry, personal attacks than talk about the economy or defend his risky bailout scheme that hands over billions in taxpayer dollars to the same irresponsible Wall Street banks and lenders that got us into this mess, a scheme that guarantees taxpayers will lose money."

Speaking at the start of a two-day bus tour through swing-state Ohio on Thursday, Obama took a similar line. He declared McCain's plan for the U.S. government to buy up $300 billion worth of sour home mortgages and re-negotiate them at lower interest rates would force the government to absorb the full cost of the bad mortgages and let lenders off the hook for questionable practices.

McCain put forward the mortgage rescue idea Tuesday night during the second presidential debate.

Obama has charged that McCain was "erratic" in his response to the economic crisis and voters, polls show, seem to agree. Obama has expanded his lead in the Gallup Poll daily tracking survey to 11 points, 51-41. And several polling organizations now put McCain even or behind in must-win states captured by Bush in 2000 and 2004 that are key to a Republican win.

The veteran Arizona senator, who said last year that he was not as well versed on economic issues as he would like, has offered a variety of messages since the U.S. economic crisis began. At first, he responded by saying the country's fundamentals were strong. He then said he was putting his campaign on hold and wanted to delay the first presidential debate with Obama to deal with the unfolding financial meltdown.

On Friday, McCain proposed a plan that would suspend mandatory sale of stocks in retirement funds.

McCain said his economic plan would spare investors who have to start selling off their retirement accounts at age 70 and a half. As the economy struggles and Wall Street plunges, the value of these accounts have tanked.

Obama's cause also has been helped by his hefty advertising budget. On Thursday, his campaign announced that Obama has scheduled a half-hour commercial for prime time national television on Oct. 29, six days before Election Day.

Creating unease
Over the past week, McCain's campaign resurrected Ayers and other associations of Obama's that were first raised during the Democratic primaries. McCain's advisers have signaled that they believe the 72-year-old four-term Arizona senator's best chance to win rests with stoking voter unease about the 47-year-old first-term Illinois senator who would be the country's first black president.

The new ad, which the campaign says will run nationally, comes the same day the Republican National Committee begins running its own TV commercial in Indiana and Wisconsin that also seeks to sow doubts about Obama's political upbringing. That spot links Obama to Ayers and other Chicago figures. "The Chicago Way. Shady politics. That's Barack Obama's training," the ad says.

McCain himself stepped up this line of attack on Thursday, telling voters in Wisconsin that the Democrat's association with Ayers raises questions about his honesty and asserting that Obama had not been truthful in describing the relationship.

We need to know the full extent of the relationship," McCain said and later told ABC News: "It's a factor about Sen. Obama's candor and truthfulness with the American people."

McCain on Friday was holding a rally in Wisconsin, and Obama was continuing his stops in key swing state Ohio. Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, was campaigning in Missouri. Palin had no public appearances scheduled Friday.

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