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McCain focuses on Florida; Obama campaigns in Indiana

LOS ANGELES TIMES

October 24, 2008

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. - John McCain took his campaign to the crucial Interstate 4 corridor in Central Florida yesterday, stressing economic issues in this vote-rich region that could help decide who wins the presidency.

While the Arizona senator kicked off what his campaign called the "Joe the Plumber Tour," for the tradesman Republicans have turned into a symbol of working-class Americans, Democrat Barack Obama concentrated on the economy and urged people to vote early in Indianapolis.

Looking out at what officials said was a crowd of 35,000 people who came to a downtown park, Obama argued a familiar theme: that the country cannot afford a president who "thinks the economic policies of George W. Bush are just right for America."

"You see, I have a different notion of fundamental economics than my opponent," the Illinois senator said. "Because where I come from, there's nothing more fundamental than a good-paying job. There's nothing more fundamental than being able to pay your health care bills, put your kids through college, or retire with dignity and security. There's nothing more fundamental than the American dream - and that's the dream we can reclaim if you stand with me."

In Florida, which has lost the most jobs in the nation in the past eight years, McCain accused Obama of adding a work requirement to his tax-relief policies to avoid GOP charges that he was creating a new form of welfare for the unemployed.

"He changed his tax plan because the American people learned the truth about it and they didn't like it," McCain told an enthusiastic crowd who packed a lumberyard in Ormond Beach, a suburb of Daytona Beach, his first of five stops in this pivotal state that has gone Republican in the past two presidential elections. "It's another example that he'll say anything to get elected."

Obama's campaign quickly fired back, accusing McCain of distorting Obama's proposal to provide a mortgage interest tax credit. Every refundable tax credit in the federal tax code includes a work requirement, and the Obama campaign insists their plan does as well.

"Last week, Senator McCain called Obama's tax cuts for working people 'welfare,'" Tommy Vietor, an Obama spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to reporters. "Today, he's claiming Senator Obama doesn't do enough to help the unemployed. The only thing consistent about these attacks is how dishonest they are."

Vietor said that under Obama's tax plan, tax credits "only go to workers and they always have."

The McCain tour was scheduled to make five stops in a rolling cavalcade that headed southwest along Interstate 4 from Daytona Beach to Tampa Bay. The fast-growing I-4 corridor - home to citrus farms, Disney World and stock car racing tracks - is considered the key to Florida's 27 electoral votes, which represent one-tenth the total needed to win the White House.

As he has for days, McCain repeatedly invoked "Joe the Plumber" as an American archetype who would suffer under Obama's tax policies.

After his rally, Obama flew to Hawaii to spend time with his ailing grandmother, Madelyn Payne Dunham, 85, who helped raise him.

MCCAIN SAID:

In Florida, John McCain said yesterday that Obama "believes in redistributing the wealth, not in policies that grow our economy and create jobs and opportunities for all Americans."

OBAMA SAID:

In Virginia yesterday, Obama said the difference between his tax plan and McCain's is "who he wants to give tax cuts to and who I want to give tax cuts to. ... Under my plan, tax rates will actually be less than they were under Ronald Reagan."