Published: October 10, 2008 08:59 am            

Obama, McCain campaign on economic issues

CINCINNATI — The hike along Observatory Road here is a long and winding one, a challenge that thousands took on Thursday to see Barack Obama after parking their cars a mile away or more.

But as glorious as the fall afternoon was in Ault Park, the Illinois senator knew there was fear in the crowd, especially on a day when the stock market dropped nearly 700 points, closing about 40 percent below its peak a year ago.

“The stock market took another beating today,” he said, later adding, “If you’ve invested your life’s savings in the stock market, or a 401(k), you’ve got a 101-K now. You’ve watched a good chunk of it disappear.”

In his first visit to Ohio in a month, the Democratic nominee spent part of his day in a southwestern section of the battleground state, an area that tends to lean Republican. He suggested his GOP opponent, John McCain, has wavered in his statements and proposals about what to do about the financial and housing crisis.

“You can’t afford that kind of erratic, uncertain leadership in these uncertain times,” he said. “We need a steady hand in the White House.”

McCain, campaigning in Waukesha, Wis., took a question about Obama’s personal associations and used it to assert his rival has been withholding important details about his relationship with former 1960s-era radical William Ayers, now a professor in Chicago.

McCain made mention of Ayers for the first time at a campaign rally, though he did not refer to the former Weather Underground leader directly by name.

McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said voters need to agitate for clearer answers about Obama’s record that are not coming from traditional news sources.

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“We are all a product of our association,” a voter told McCain during a town hall-style event. “Is there not a way to get around this media and line up the people that he has hung with?”

McCain then made reference to Ayers, describing him as “an old washed-up terrorist... who still, at least on Sept. 11, 2001, said he still wanted to bomb more.”

Continuing, McCain said: “The point is Sen. Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood. We know that’s just not true. We need to know the full extent of the relationship because of whether Sen. Obama is telling the truth to the American people or not. That’s the question.”

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Invoking Ayers reflects a determination by the McCain campaign to challenge Obama more aggressively in the final weeks before the Nov. 4 election. The Republicans hope to persuade voters they know too little about Obama’s past to make him president and should opt instead for the better-known McCain.

Another person in the Republican audience shouted out “Obama-Osama,” a reference to Osama bin Laden, while yet another urged McCain to step up his criticism of Obama by putting the focus on Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Obama’s former controversial pastor from Chicago.

“I am begging you, sir,” one supporter implored McCain. “I am begging you. Take it to him!”

McCain supporters screamed with approval.

Both McCain and Palin appeared to want the crowd to press for answers, faulting the news media for not doing the job themselves. Supporters passing the rows of reporters leaned in and said: “Tell the truth!” Others made obscene gestures to the press bus as it pulled out of Waukesha.

In Ohio, Obama specifically criticized McCain’s new proposal to have the federal government buy bad home loans to reduce foreclosures, saying it did not have enough taxpayer protections.

“Sen. McCain actually wants the government to pay the full face value of mortgages on the books, even though they’re not worth that much anymore,” Obama said at a stop in Dayton. “Banks wouldn’t take a loss, but taxpayers would.”

        

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