Amid criticism, McCain seeks comeback

updated 5:23 p.m. ET Oct. 24, 2008

DENVER - Frustrated Republicans voiced concern with their own presidential candidate, John McCain, on Friday as he sought one more comeback in a career full of them. He warned that the middle class will "get put through the wringer" if Barack Obama wins the White House.

Obama, ahead in the polls, took a day off from campaigning to visit his critically ill grandmother in Hawaii. But two Republicans popped up to darken McCain's day.

"I would have done things differently the last few weeks," Rep. Paul Ryan told a newspaper in his home state of Wisconsin.

Noting that Obama has outspent the Republican on television advertising in the state, he added, "I think McCain's economic and health care plans should have been more vigorously defended, and unfortunately Obama has been able to incorrectly define McCain's plans and ideas."

Ryan made his comments in an interview with the Janesville Republican, while former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge expressed a different concern to a different newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Ridge remarks
Ridge said the race would have been different in his state, which has 21 electoral votes, if McCain had chosen him as running mate instead of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

"I think we'd be foolish not to admit it publicly," he said, although he added that in selecting Palin, McCain had made a bold choice.

Ridge later released a written statement saying his remarks had been taken out of context and that he had often praised Palin. At the same time, he added that the race in Florida would have been different if that state's governor had been placed on the ticket, or in Minnesota similarly. Florida has 27 electoral votes and Minnesota 10. Alaska has three.

Pennsylvania and Wisconsin both voted for Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 race, but McCain has campaigned energetically in hopes of placing them in his column this fall. Recent polls show him trailing in both, as he is in surveys nationally and in some traditionally Republican states such as Virginia, Florida and Colorado.

With 11 days remaining before Election Day, Republican aides described an endgame strategy that relies on television advertising and personal campaigning to raise doubts about Obama's tax proposals on one hand and his readiness to handle a crisis on the other.

A new television commercial, unveiled during the day, cites Democratic running mate Joe Biden's prediction that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama. ... We're going to have an international crisis."

But, the announcer says, "It doesn't have to happen. Vote McCain."

Alex Brandon / AP Sen. Barack Obama in Honolulu, Friday, Oct. 24, 2008.

McCain talks economic crisis
McCain, 73, has long sought to make an issue of his 47-year-old rival's thinner foreign policy resume, but the economic crisis has overshadowed all other issues in the past month.

McCain assailed his rival's economic proposals as he campaigned in three Colorado communities during the day.

"He believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs," McCain said in Denver. "Sen. Obama may say he's trying to soak the rich ... but it's the middle class who are going to get put through the wringer, because a lot of his promised tax increase misses the target."

Trouble for Palin back home?
For her part, Palin continued to be dogged by controversy from back home. Aides said she and her husband Todd were spending part of their day giving sworn depositions to investigators about her firing of the state's public safety commissioner.

The dismissed official, Walt Monegan, says he was ousted because he refused to fire a member of the force who was divorced from the governor's sister. The Palins deny it.

Video Palin: Obama will hurt special needs families Oct. 24: Sarah Palin tells a Pennsylvania audience that Barack Obama's tax proposals will have "serious and harmful consequences" on families of special needs children. MSNBC

Palin campaigned in Pennsylvania during the day, where she pledged that she and McCain would provide full federal funding for a program that benefits children with special needs.

Since the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was approved three decades ago, she said, "the federal government's obligations ... have not been adequately met. And portions of IDEA funding have actually decreased since 2005," said Palin, who spoke at length in her remarks about her young son Trig, who has Down syndrome.

Under federal law, the U.S. government is supposed to pay 40 percent of the costs of IDEA. In fact, it falls billions of dollars short. Figures show it would cost an additional $15 billion annually to fulfill the requirement.

McCain has called for a spending freeze for most federal programs, and does not routinely mention IDEA as a program that would be exempt. Palin suggested the money might come from the elimination of earmark spending, which is funding that goes to projects sought by individual lawmakers.

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