McCain seeks to reassure fleeing voters
AFP
Published: Monday October 13, 2008
Republican John McCain Monday desperately sought to win back voters hit by the economic crisis and flocking in droves towards Democrat Barack Obama, three weeks before the elections.
"With the financial crisis, we have fallen slightly behind in this race, and we have some ground to make up," McCain advisor Steven Schmidt admitted on National Public Radio early Monday.
But he said the McCain campaign was bearing the brunt of the blame directed towards the current administration of President George W. Bush, as voters overwhelmingly say they trust Obama more with the economy.
"We are disadvantaged by virtue of having an 'R' next to our name on the ballot in an election cycle where there's a lot of blame at the president, a lot of blame at the Republican party, as the party that's held the White House for the last eight years," Schmidt acknowleged.
McCain was to address a rally in Virginia Beach, Virginia, a key battleground state in this election even though it has not voted for a Democratic White House candidate since 1964, seeking to reassure voters that he could lead the country out of the crisis.
Schmidt stressed two days before the final presidential debate that: "The election isn't today, the election is in three weeks, and we feel good about our chances to come out on top in this race.
"We're in the middle of an unprecedented financial crisis in the country, and everybody listening understands that," Schmidt said with the clocking ticking towards the November 4 vote.
But he acknowleged that the Republican White House hopeful had no new plans to unveil Monday as the country battles to overcome its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
"Everybody listening understands the tremendous anxiety caused by what is essentially a global financial collapse, and Senator McCain will talk about that today and will talk about it in more detail tomorrow as well," Schmidt said.
Obama was set to make a major address on the economy at 1830 GMT from Toledo, Ohio, setting out measures to help the struggling middle classes, facing foreclosures, plummeting stock markets and rising food prices.
A new poll by ABC News/Washington Post Monday put Obama some 10 percent ahead of the his rival on 53 percent to 43 percent, with 55 percent of people saying the economy was the single most important issue in this vote.
Authors of the survey said historically, no presidential candidate has been able to come back from an October deficit this large in pre-election polls dating back to 1936.
Nearly nine in 10 registered voters said they were worried about the direction of the national economy while about seven in 10 said they were worried about their own family finances.
And a record 90 percent of registered voters now say the country is seriously off on the wrong track, the most since this question first was asked in 1973, the survey indicated.
In the wake of the banking crisis, just 44 percent of Americans were still confident they will have enough money to carry them through retirement, down from a high of 69 percent three years ago, the survey showed.
Close McCain confidant, Senator Lindsay Graham, said on Sunday that the Arizona senator would be unveiling a new plan to kick start the world's largest economy, dragged down by the subprime mortgage crisis.
"I think it goes along the lines that now is the time to lower tax rates for investors, capital gains tax, dividend tax rates, to make sure that we can get the economy jump-started," he told CBS.
But just hours later his spokesman Tucker Bounds confirmed to AFP there would be no new announcements on Monday, amid rumors the McCain campaign was in disarray over what to lay before the country. |
