Obama attacks McCain policies

RALEIGH, N.C. — Sen. Barack Obama, with the Democratic stage to himself for the first time, opened a two-week tour of battleground states Monday, attacking Republican Sen. John McCain's economic policies and moving to focus on the ailing economy as the central theme of the general-election campaign.

In his most pointed and sustained attack on McCain's economic agenda, Obama said that a McCain presidency would be a continuation of President Bush's faltering economic policies.

And he highlighted his own proposals to aid economically beleaguered Americans: tax cuts for middle-income families and retirees, a $50 billion economic-stimulus package, expansion of unemployment benefits and relief for homeowners facing foreclosure.

The address, at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds, pushed for a more active government role in restoring the nation's economic health and aiding distressed families, setting up a stark contrast with McCain, who has proposed tax cuts for corporations and other tax reductions to spur the economy.

But while Obama has tried to link McCain's economic policies to Bush, McCain has departed from the president by calling for a greater government role in helping homeowners.

Obama's speech started a two-week tour that points to his campaign's view of the primary November battlegrounds. Monday's speech was in North Carolina, which has long backed Republican presidential candidates but which has a large black population, and he will be traveling to Florida, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Ohio to press the economic theme.

Monday he spoke of hard-pressed workers in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin struggling to pay their bills and buy gasoline. And he laid the blame squarely at the feet of President Bush, including McCain.

McCain and his campaign agree that their differences with Obama on just about everything are wide, but they say that is because the Illinois senator's prescriptions are wrong for the country.

"Sen. Obama says that I'm running for Bush's third term. It seems to me that he's running for Jimmy Carter's second," McCain said with a grin in an interview with NBC News Monday night.

Asked what he meant, McCain replied, "Because spend, spend, tax, spend."

Indeed, Republicans are trying to paint Obama — who has proposed eliminating Bush's tax cuts for those making $200,000 or more a year, possibly raising the cap on Social Security taxes and boosting the capital-gains rate — as a tax-and-spend liberal.

Compiled from The New York Times and The Boston Globe