Obama sharpens tone against McCain

'Spreading the faith'
And while Palin is right that she stood up to the big oil companies to get a pipeline deal, an Associated Press review recently found that the bidding process was flawed and narrowed the field to a pipeline company with ties to Palin's administration.

Palin took a shot at Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican who was convicted Monday on federal corruption charges.

"As you may have seen in the news this week, Alaska's senior senator is not the first man to discover the hazards of getting too close to moneyed interests with agendas of their own," she said.

Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden pushed early voting in Florida on Wednesday and urged supporters to come onstage for a training session in how to go door to door for Obama.

"We need some help spreading the faith in the next six days," Biden said.

With polls showing Obama and McCain even in Florida, the Sunshine State became even more of a battleground. Florida has 27 electoral votes, more than any other swing state.

The Obama campaign said it's trying to ensure a win by making personal contact with as many voters as possible. With 150,000 active volunteers in the state, South Florida Obama spokesman Bobby Gravitz said that supporters are reaching thousands of voters daily, either door to door or through phone calls.

"Everyone made it very clear that we want you to be engaged in the campaign. That means voting, but that means more than voting," Gravitz said. "If you came through those doors, we have your name and phone numbers and we're going to ask you to volunteer for this campaign, to get up off the couch."

Those grass-roots efforts are what it takes to elect change, Biden said.

"John McCain dressed as an agent of change is just not a costume that will sell to the American people," he said. "Especially when John McCain is the one who's been saying under the Bush economic policies we've made great economic progress."

'Battered' middle class
Criticizing McCain and Palin for what he said were negative campaign tactics, Biden told supporters that "new ideas, new leaders are often met with attacks" — attacks that he called nothing more than lies trying to distract voters from Obama's message.

Biden said Obama would cut taxes for working people and small businesses, create 120,000 jobs in Florida and make health care affordable for all Americans. He said seniors earning less than $50,000 a year would not pay income taxes under an Obama administration and shouldn't have to file a tax return.

Biden also spoke of hope for members of the "battered" middle class struggling to hang onto their homes. Florida, with about 400,000 foreclosures, is among the states hit hardest by the real-estate crisis.

"When you lose a job or you lose a house through foreclosure it's an economic loss, but it is emotionally devastating," he said.

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