Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain nudged his party toward agreement on an economic rescue on Friday and even opened dialogue with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The McCain team, before resuming the campaign and heading to a presidential debate in Mississippi, said the candidate contacted the administration and Republican leaders in both chambers to foster engagement in a bipartisan compromise.

The conversations included House Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, House Budget Committee ranking Republican Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senate Budget Committee ranking Republican Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., said aides familiar with the calls.

He also contacted Mrs. Clinton, New York Democrat and former presidential contender, to promote bipartisan negotiations, talks that proved "cordial and productive," said McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds. He did not give details of the conversation.

Mrs. Clinton said the conversation was part of her effort to find a solution to the market crisis.

"Throughout this crisis Senator Clinton has spoken to many people, including Secretary Paulson, [Federal Reserve Bank of New York President Timothy F. Geithner] and colleagues including Senators Obama and McCain, and she's reiterated to them all what she's called for in public," Clinton senior adviser Philippe Reines said.

The turmoil over the bailout on Capitol Hill, especially among Republicans, frustrated Mr. McCain's bid to be a sober referee in a time of crisis, an outcome relished by Democrats. But it also put the long-suffering Republicans on the same side as a majority of voters opposed to a $700 billion rescue package for Wall Street.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid insisted Mr. McCain politicized the process and House Republicans dragged it to a standstill by pushing an alternative plan.

"The time is now for House Republicans to come to the negotiating table and for presidential politics to leave the negotiating table," said Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat. "The insertion of presidential politics has not been helpful. It's been harmful. ... all [Mr. McCain] has done is stand in front of the cameras. We still don't know where he stands on the issue."

Unlike Mr. McCain, Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama kept a low profile in the Wall Street bailout debate, although he did attend the White House meeting at the request of President Bush.

"When you start injecting presidential politics into delicate negotiations, then you can actually create more problems rather than less," Mr. Obama told reporters. "I think both myself and Senator McCain need to be very careful in terms of how we inject ourselves into this process."

The Democrats proposal takes the administrations plan to spend $700 billion buying the frozen assets and adds an independent board to oversee the program, aid for homeowners facing foreclosure and limits on corporate executives' compensation.

Mr. McCain has said he wants any government intervention into the finance industry to include ample protections for taxpayers and signaled that he is receptive to House Republican proposals, which include using federal mortgage insurance rather than asset buyouts to unfreeze the credit market.

The U.S. senators, meeting in the midst of the nation's biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, fell back on themes they've used throughout their historic campaigns -- likely scoring points with some voters while failing to break much new ground.

Obama, claiming the mantle of change, went on the attack early last night, when McCain proposed a partial freeze on government spending to help solve the financial crisis.

"John, it's been your president, who you said you agreed with 90 percent of the time, who presided over this increase in spending, this orgy of spending,'' said Obama, 47. "So to stand here after eight years and say that you're going to lead'' is "kind of hard to swallow.''

McCain, 72, questioned Obama's understanding of foreign policy and played up 26 years of experience in the House and Senate representing Arizona, saying he's played a major role in military issues.

"There are some advantages to experience and knowledge and judgment,'' McCain said. "And I honestly don't believe that Senator Obama has the knowledge or experience, and has made the wrong judgments in a number of areas.''

Combative and Cool

"Both conducted themselves as they have campaigned,'' said William Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine who served as Defense secretary under Democratic President Bill Clinton. "Senator McCain is a fighter; he's more combative. Senator Obama was more laid-back and more cool in terms of how he was handling issues, more cerebral.''

A post-debate survey of 500 uncommitted voters by CBS found that 39 percent thought Obama won and 25 percent gave the edge to McCain. Thirty-six percent called it a draw.

"If you were for McCain, I bet you thought he did great,'' said Stuart Rothenberg, the editor of the nonpartisan Rothenberg Political Report in Washington. "If you were for Obama, you thought he did great. I really have a hard time believing anyone had a knockout blow here.''

The economy dominated the first part of the often contentious match-up at the University of Mississippi, consuming 36 minutes of a 90-minute debate originally intended to focus on foreign policy.

Support for Rescue Plan

Both candidates voiced support for some kind of government rescue package to address the meltdown on Wall Street, which dominated news for two days as McCain refused until yesterday to commit to a debate while the bailout plan is being debated in Congress.

Pressed on whether he'd vote for the plan, McCain said "sure.'' Obama, in his first Senate term from Illinois, said work is still being done and he is "optimistic'' about an agreement.

Both senators said the plan being negotiated in Congress must protect middle-income taxpayers and people facing home foreclosure.

"We have to make sure that we protect taxpayers as we engage in this rescue,'' Obama said. "We have to ensure that we have the possibility of getting the money back.''

McCain said no one should doubt the magnitude of the crisis. He said any solution must help people faced with losing their homes. "We're not talking about failures of institutions on Wall Street, we're talking about failures on Main Street,'' he said.

No Specifics

Asked how the need to spend $700 billion or more on a rescue package would alter their policy plans if they win the White House, Obama would only say some of programs -- including clean-energy projects -- might be delayed or altered.

McCain returned to the theme of cutting government spending and proposed to freeze budgets for all programs except defense, veterans' programs, and entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.

The two men at times talked over each other. While Obama often turned to address McCain, McCain usually looked straight ahead despite repeated requests by the moderator, PBS anchor Jim Lehrer, who encouraged the candidates to speak to each other.

Obama accused McCain of distorting his record on a number of issues, saying "That's not true'' nine times during the forum.

Obama was most at ease during the economic portion of the debate, considered his strong suit, while McCain improved as the subject turned to foreign affairs, analysts said.

McCain repeatedly sought to diminish Obama, saying he lacks understanding and judgment, especially on national security issues.

Tactics and Strategy

During an exchange on Iraq policy, McCain said Obama "doesn't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy.'' Obama shot back: "I absolutely understand the difference between tactics and strategy.''

McCain said Obama's willingness to negotiate with leaders such as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "isn't just na ve, it's dangerous.'' Obama "doesn't seem to understand'' that meeting with such leaders would legitimize them, he said.

"So let me get this right,'' McCain said. "We sit down with Ahmadinejad, and he says, 'We're going to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth,' and we say, 'No, you're not?' Oh, please.''

Talking to Iran

Obama cited statements by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to back up his position that he would meet with the leader of Iran.

Kissinger has on more than one occasion advocated direct negotiations with Iran, although not at the presidential level. Earlier this month, at a CNN forum on foreign policy, he said he "preferred doing it at the secretary of state level.''

Shortly after last night's debate, the Weekly Standard, on its Web site, quoted Kissinger as saying: "Senator McCain is right. I would not recommend the next president of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the presidential level.'' Kissinger said that while he didn't agree with McCain on everything, "we do agree that any negotiations with Iran must be geared to reality.''

When the subject shifted to Pakistan, McCain said: "I don't think Senator Obama understands that there was a failed state in Pakistan'' when General Pervez Musharaff seized power from civilian leaders in 1999.

Obama repeated his view that he would authorize unilateral U.S. military strikes on senior al-Qaeda leaders such as Osama bin Laden in Pakistan if Pakistani leaders were "unable or unwilling to act.''

Nuclear Power

McCain also tried to throw Obama off guard on the issue of nuclear energy.

"Senator Obama says he's for nuclear, but he's against reprocessing and he's against storing'' nuclear waste, McCain said, prompting a denial from Obama.

While Obama has said nuclear power must be part of the U.S. energy mix, he is against using the Yucca Mountain storage site in Nevada for spent nuclear fuel. He supports more scientific study on disposal methods and developing standards for interim waste storage at reactor sites. On reprocessing, Obama says he wants strict controls established before used fuel is recycled to prevent material from falling into the hands of terrorists.

Obama was most combative when talking about the Iraq war, stressing his opposition and tying McCain's support of the conflict to the policies of President George W. Bush.

"You said we knew where the weapons of mass destruction were,'' Obama said, turning to McCain. "You were wrong. You said that we were going to be greeted as liberators. You were wrong. You said that there was no history of violence between Shia and Sunni. And you were wrong.''

In Limbo

The debate had been in limbo until yesterday morning. On Sept. 24, McCain said the forum should be delayed until a deal was reached in Congress to address the financial crisis. Obama rebuffed the proposal, saying he believed the debate was more important than ever. McCain decided yesterday to participate even though the rescue plan remained unsettled.

Both sides claimed victory.

"Barack Obama passed the commander-in-chief test,'' former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke, an adviser to the Illinois senator, said on Bloomberg's Political Capital with Al Hunt following last night's debate.

McCain adviser Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as secretary of state at the end of George H.W. Bush's presidency, said "in foreign affairs it was a substantial victory for McCain.''

By Kristin Jensen and Ken Fireman, Bloomberg, September 27, 2008

WASHINGTON/GREENSBORO, North Carolina (Reuters) - White House hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain accused each other of playing politics with the financial crisis on Saturday, stepping up their attacks one day after their first presidential debate ended in a virtual tie.

After a high-pressure encounter in Mississippi, where the two candidates clashed sharply on spending and foreign policy, Obama hit the campaign trail and McCain returned to Washington to work on a rescue package for the financial sector.

McCain, an Arizona senator who some Democrats feared would upset delicate negotiations, spent most of the day working the phones from his campaign office rather than joining talks on Capitol Hill.

In remarks delivered by satellite to a group of hunters and fishermen in Ohio, McCain said the debate illustrated his differences with Obama over Wall Street's problems.

"It was clear that Senator Obama still sees the financial crisis in America as a national problem to be exploited first and solved later," he said.

"This is a moment of great testing, when the future of our economy is on the line, and I am determined to help achieve a legislative package to help avoid the worst."

Obama, an Illinois senator, and his running mate Joe Biden, meanwhile, took turns criticizing McCain on the economy and his ties to unpopular President George W. Bush at a rally in North Carolina.

"You see, I think Senator McCain just doesn't get it -- he doesn't get that this crisis on Wall Street ... hit Main Street long ago," Obama said. "That's why he's been shifting positions these last two weeks, looking for a photo-op, and trying to figure out what to say and what to do."

In Washington, lawmakers were still working on a proposed $700 billion bailout of the financial industry in response to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

McCain spoke to Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and congressional leaders, his campaign said.

Obama spoke by phone to Paulson and Democratic lawmakers.

Congressional leaders said they hoped to reach a deal by the end of the weekend so Congress can act on Sunday or Monday.

Several have said they were frustrated with Thursday's theatrics when McCain rushed to Capitol Hill and attended a White House meeting with Obama that ended in acrimony.

"The further presidential politics stays from these negotiations, the better off we'll be and the quicker we can come to a solution," said Sen. Charles Schumer, New York Democrat who chairs the Joint Economic Committee.

In the debate both McCain and Obama were optimistic Congress would agree to a rescue plan, but said the huge price tag would limit their agendas as the next president.

Public opinion polls have shown Obama gaining over the past week on the question of who could best lead the country on economic issues. Most polls show Obama holding a slight and growing lead over McCain.

Both camps claimed victory after the 90-minute debate during which McCain, 72, and Obama, 47, repeatedly questioned each other's judgment.

Neither candidate scored any clear blows or committed major gaffes. McCain was on the attack frequently and put Obama on the defensive, but he responded forcefully.

Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe said the exchange showed the Illinois senator had more than passed the "commander in chief" test.

"We think last night we not only passed it, we flew by it," he told reporters on a conference call.

The Obama campaign released a new advertisement called "zero" -- the number of times it said McCain made reference to the middle class during the debate. "McCain doesn't get it. Barack Obama does," the ad's narrator says.

McCain lashed out at Obama for not talking about victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

His campaign released an ad criticizing Obama for a 2007 vote against funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The narrator says Obama was "playing politics, risking lives. Not ready to lead."

Nielsen Media, which measures U.S. television viewers, said about one-third of households in its top 55 cities tuned in, but a final viewership number would be determined on Monday.

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Saturday called Republican rival John McCain out of touch with middle-class Americans, telling supporters that the GOP senator never once uttered the words "middle class" during their first debate.

"Through 90 minutes of debate, John McCain had a lot to say about me, but he didn't have anything to say about you," Obama told a cheering crowd at the J. Douglas Galyon Depot in downtown Greensboro. "He didn't even say the words 'middle class.' He didn't even say the words 'working people.'"

Obama debuted his post-debate attack on McCain with a campaign swing through North Carolina and Virginia, Republican-leaning states where he thinks he can make inroads. He also found time to speak by phone to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., about the congressional negotiations surrounding the Wall Street recovery deal, according to campaign staff.

The Illinois senator was spending most of the day trying to capitalize on his debate performance by taking McCain to task for not talking about any plans for helping the middle class in the midst of the country's financial and fiscal crisis.

"Just as important as what we heard from John McCain is what we didn't hear from John McCain," Obama said. "We talked about the economy for 40 minutes and not once did Sen. McCain talk about the struggles of middle-class families. Not once did he talk about what they are facing every day here in North Carolina and across the country."

McCain's campaign suggested Saturday that the Arizona senator had referred to the middle class during the debate when he argued that Obama had voted in favor of higher taxes on families making $42,000 a year and proposed hundreds of billions in new government spending that would place a crushing burden on families and businesses. Obama disputed both of those assertions and said that 95 percent of America taxpayers would not pay more in taxes under his plan.

"If he was honest, Barack Obama knows he was unable to debate the merits of supporting higher taxes on the middle class, and bloated government spending during a looming economic crisis — it simply proved indefensible last night," McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement.

Appearing with Obama on Saturday, running mate Joe Biden called McCain's judgment on every important issue "wrong."

"Last night, John McCain's silence on the middle class was deafening," said Biden, a Delaware senator. "We need more than a brave soldier. We need a wise leader."

The Obama campaign tried to back up that point in its newest ad, a spot released Saturday that also notes McCain never mentioned the middle class during the debate. "McCain doesn't get it," the announcer says. "Barack Obama does."

"We need a president who will fight for the middle class every day, and that's what I will do when I'm in the Oval Office," Obama told the cheering crowd.

Obama's wife, Michelle, and Biden's wife, Jill, visited Tallahassee, Fla., together to urge young people and minorities to vote in November, capping a two-week voter registration drive.

In Michigan, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned for her ex-rival, saying that Republicans shouldn't be rewarded "for what they have done to our country."

"We cannot turn over our country with these deep deficits, with these serious economic problems, with the international challenges, to the same team that got us into this mess in the first place," Clinton told more than 1,000 people gathered at a park in Grand Ledge, Mich., about 10 miles west of Lansing, the first of three campaign stops scheduled in the state.

"There's no doubt in anyone's mind that Sen. Obama understands the economic challenges we face as well as the need to change the way we do business here at home and around the world," Clinton said.

Obama advisers said they were encouraged by his performance in the foreign policy arena at the debate at the University of Mississippi but immediately started dampening expectations for future debates.

"This was supposed to be John McCain's turf, and Barack Obama owned it," Biden said.

Obama adviser David Plouffe told reporters the Democrat "spoke really to people in their homes about needing a president who is going to fight for the middle class, who is going to work on things like education and health care."

The presidential hopefuls are scheduled to debate twice more, at Belmont University in Nashville on Oct. 7 and at Hofstra University in Hempsted, N.Y., on Oct. 15.

The next debate will be a town hall format, and Plouffe called McCain the "undisputed town hall champion."

"We cannot turn over our country with these deep deficits, with these serious economic problems, with the international challenges, to the same team that got us into this mess in the first place," Clinton told more than 1,000 people gathered at a park in this town 10 miles west of the state capital.

"There's no doubt in anyone's mind that Senator Obama understands the economic challenges we face as well as the need to change the way we do business here at home and around the world."

Clinton also planned to campaign for Obama in Grand Rapids and Flint later Saturday. All events are free.

She said the "day of reckoning" has come for voters. She called Republican George Bush's presidency the worst in U.S. history. She added that Republican John McCain is a friend she respects.

"But I do not believe that the Republicans should be rewarded for what they have done to our country. Think of it that way," Clinton said.

She said the next president will inherit a lot of problems and, referring to Obama, said Americans want someone with new ideas and an ability to think outside the box.

Clinton lost the Democratic nomination to Obama in a close race but has recently stepped up efforts to swing her supporters behind her former rival.

She has invited her primary-season partisans to get involved directly in Obama's campaign and to donate to it.

The New York senator has campaigned for Obama in a handful of battleground states such as Ohio and Florida.

The crowd in the park included women like Joyce Bixler, 57, who said she was very disappointed Clinton lost the nomination.

"I am very much for Obama, though, and his change," said Bixler, a retired sale consultant who lives in Cortland, Ohio. She was in the area visiting friends.

Bixler said if Obama had selected Clinton to be his running mate, she would have "no doubt" about Democrats winning the White House.

"I still get goose bumps when I hear her talk because I wanted her so badly to win. I just think she's a smart woman."

Grand Ledge resident and Obama supporter Linda Drahnak, 64, said she came partly to hear how Clinton would persuade independents into Democrats' corner.

She wanted Clinton to "make the case that if Democrats do not win then the country may go to hell in a hand basket more than it is right now."

Drahnak, a retired payroll manager, said she liked Obama's "way of uniting people."

To Democrats it simply does not make sense. The past eight years, with Republicans in control of the White House, have, they say, been disastrous for America. The military is beleaguered and beaten down after two long and taxing wars. The nation, they go on, has been disgraced in the eyes of the world. The economy has collapsed. The financial system is broken. Eighty percent of voters believe the nation is on the wrong track. Yet, a month and a half before the November election, the Democratic nominee for the presidency only slightly leads the Republican standard bearer in most polls. The GOP, in spite of everything, might somehow be able to hold on to power.

How could this possibly be? Surely, anxious Democrats have told themselves, only a nefarious plot could have gotten us here. The Republicans cannot win this election on the issues, they reason, so they have set out to win it the way they always do - by distraction, division and lies. They will paint Democrats as out-of-touch elitists on the wrong side of the culture war, and a country that doesn't know better will accept their fabrication whole hog. The only way to win this election is to beat the Republicans at their own game. This is the way it works in modern presidential politics: Democrats run on ideas and issues, Republicans run on Karl Rove.

But this paranoid view, that Roveism alone wins campaigns for the GOP, cannot fully explain a simple reality: for 40 years, Republicans have won the presidency more often than not. The GOP has won seven of the past 10 presidential elections. Republican candidates have won more than 400 electoral votes in four separate elections (Richard Nixon's re-election in 1972, Ronald Reagan's wins in 1980 and 1984 and George H.W. Bush's victory in 1988), while the Democrats' best showings came in 1992 and 1996, when Bill Clinton won 370 and 379 electoral votes, respectively. Jimmy Carter is the only Democratic presidential candidate in 44 years to win 50 percent of the popular vote. If this phenomenal Republican record is thanks only to the dirty tricks of Karl Rove (or Lee Atwater, or Richard Nixon before him), then surely our political system is so easily subverted by treachery that a revolution is required.

Ideas have always done more for the modern Republican Party than critics on the left would care to admit. It is true that Nixon, a paranoid cynic convinced that only ruthlessness could win him the White House, was the first president of this center-right era. But he won the White House in 1968 and again in 1972 because he offered an effective alternative to the New Deal consensus that government could help mankind be its better self - a consensus that had been discredited by the decline of the postwar boom, the failure of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and an American military defeat. Nixon's ruthlessness, laid bare in Watergate, unmade his presidency, but did not make it. George H.W. Bush won the White House not because of the tawdry Willie Horton ad but because he convinced the country he was the only candidate ready to be president in an unknown post-cold-war world. George W. Bush won the White House not simply by Swift-Boating John Kerry but by convincing voters that only Bush could keep them safe.

Similarly, the Democratic candidates who have managed to win the White House, Carter and Clinton, have surveyed a center-right nation and concluded: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Conservatives today may call Carter a socialist, but he ran for the presidency as a Southern Baptist outsider, intent on reining in a reckless government. Bill Clinton was the most easy-to-slime Democratic candidate in modern history, but also the most naturally centrist. History will remember him for two sentences - "The era of big government is over" and "I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." The first sentence won him a second term in the White House; the second, despite the efforts of Republican adversaries, did not take that term away.

Barack Obama belongs to a different era than Carter and Clinton, and in many ways he has a more interesting opportunity. The past eight years, after all, have brought the shortcomings and inconsistencies of the center-right consensus to the fore. The benefits of prolonged economic growth have not trickled down to average workers. The federal government's massive Wall Street bailout is, in essence, the surrender of the notion that unbridled capitalism could provide for the general good. For the first time in 40 years, the left has a real chance to sway the center's notion of the proper role of the state. With six weeks left in the campaign, Democrats will find more luck imagining this new consensus than they will in imagining the evils of Karl Rove.

By Jonathan Darman, NEWSWEEK, Sep 20, 2008

I have covered in some detail Barack Obama's "rural problem," which manifested itself in poor performances in primary battles east of the Mississippi. My sense - based on the poll data, press reports, and people with whom I speak in Western Pennsylvania - is that it is still present.

Does John McCain have a rural problem, too?

What tipped me off to the possibility is McCain's poll position in Indiana. In its most recent report, the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project showed that McCain is not spending money on television in the Hoosier State. But the polls have been tight - which has been contrary to my expectations. I figured that, with the conventions and the realization that this is a close race, the partisanship of Indiana would induce the state to swing McCain's way (an inverse of New Jersey's quadrennial flirtation with the GOP). According to recent polls, this has not happened. McCain retains a lead in the RCP average, but it is much less than what George W. Bush pulled in 2004. Why?

Pundits have often referenced Obama's proximity to the state. That's a positive reason to explain the tight race: Indiana likes Obama because he's the friendly neighbor. But what if part of the answer is negative: Indiana doesn't like McCain so much.

Why would Indiana not like John McCain? After all, he's a Republican who has stood up for party reform and good governance. For example, he has opposed government subsidies for ethanol, and the good Republican folk in Indiana should really respond to that, right?

Maybe not.

Indiana is a major producer of ethanol - number 5 in the nation, capable of producing 1.2 billion gallons of ethanol per year. Indiana also ranks number 5 in corn production, generating 760 million bushels per year. Corn producers love ethanol because it's another use for their crop, which means corn prices go up.

Could this be why McCain is doing poorly relative to George W. Bush's performance in 2004? It might be. Granted, only a small slice of Indiana's workforce is classified as agricultural. Like western Ohio, Indiana's workers are much more focused on manufacturing and tech than agriculture - despite the vast acres dedicated to farming. However, corn production is still a crucial aspect of the state's economy - especially in the productive farmland along Interstate 65 between Indianapolis and...Chicago!

I'd note that McCain is also doing poorly in Iowa, number one with a bullet in both corn and ethanol production. He's also had problems in Minnesota, number four in ethanol and corn.

This ethanol issue might explain this peculiar bit of news that crossed my sight line last week.

OMAHA, Neb. - Reliably Republican, Nebraska has been giving the GOP all its electoral votes in every presidential election since 1964. Democratic candidate Barack Obama is trying to take just one of its five votes this year by focusing on Omaha, the state's biggest, most diverse city.

Why would Obama be angling for Nebraska? It could be in part that it's number 3 in corn and number 2 in ethanol. Of course, Omaha is a large city - not a farm. However, it is tied to the economy of the state, and therefore to corn and ethanol. Maybe the Obama campaign's theory is that disinclination to McCain among ethanol-friendly voters, plus the 10% African American population, plus the 6% Hispanic population, plus the tight geographical boundaries of the district (favorable for organizing) will enable him to eke out a win.

Meanwhile, Illinois ranks second in corn production and third in ethanol. If there is something going on here, it is unsurprising that a candidate like Obama - an urban politician who must appeal to a large rural electorate - would note it. If you want to win statewide in Illinois, you have to know a thing or two about the downstate economy. That might have tipped his team off to the potential of Iowa, Indiana, and even Nebraska.

There are two other states that Obama has angled for that might be explained by McCain's anti-pork stands: North Dakota and Alaska. Again, it is strange to expect to vote against the Republican nominee. But is it strange to expect them to vote against John McCain?

Again, maybe not.

John McCain has a reputation as a pork buster. This year Alaska received the most pork per capita - $555.54 per person. North Dakota ranks third - $207.72 per person. This might even explain why the Obama campaign recently tossed a few bucks in advertising at West Virginia, which received $179.80 per person this year.

Unfortunately, we don't have the kind of polling data that could push this analysis to the next level. We'd need to link individual attitudes about McCain to proximity to ethanol and/or pork barrel spending. We can't do that. All we can do is suggest that McCain might have a problem.

If he does, it would be a lesson in why Congress still rolls the log: it helps members win reelection. People might not like the profligacy of the process, but many of them like getting goodies from the government. Some people in some places more than like it - they actually need the assistance. If you stand in their way, then give them an opportunity to vote you down, they might just do that.

What's this mean electorally? McCain only needs Indiana to go for him by a single vote. He can sacrifice some votes there. More than some, actually. Bush won the state by 20 points in 2004. It's one thing to talk about Obama shaving that lead down. It's another thing entirely to talk about him taking the state. Ditto for Nebraska's second congressional district, which went for Bush by 22 points in 2004. I would be surprised if Obama took either. And recent reports indicate that Obama has bailed on North Dakota and Alaska.

So, outside Iowa, it's unlikely that any Electors are going to be moved. Nevertheless, based on the data available to us in the public, we'd have to peg the likelihood of Obama winning Indiana at some non-zero number. That's pretty unique for a year that probably won't be a Democratic blowout.

I don't know if the McCain campaign needs to do engage Obama in Indiana. After all, it has reams of data that those of us in the public simply do not possess. We have just a handful of public polls. It has so much more than that. Team McCain might be looking at that three-point lead in the Hoosier State and feel pretty good, given how much Obama has spent. We can't know.

Nevertheless, it is fair to suggest that it consider tightening it's message to farmers. A quick Google search betrays McCain's soft underbelly on this front.

"It's just, I don't know what he's thinking," Moran said of Obama as she pondered the candidates after coffee at a rural farmers market near the Maryland border. "I don't know what he wants, really. It'll be a last-minute decision, I think."

There are plenty of reasons things should be going Obama's way in Pennsylvania.

The state was a Democratic highlight in 2006 as the party took control of Congress, picking up a Senate seat and four House seats here - more than in any other state. Since 2004, when President Bush barely lost the state to John Kerry, the Democratic advantage in party registration over the GOP has swelled to more than 1 million - including 100,000 voters who have joined the party since the state's April primaries.

Even history is on Obama's side: A GOP presidential candidate hasn't won the state since 1988.

But this was Hillary Rodham Clinton country during the primary elections - she defeated Obama decisively.

And the lead Obama had over McCain in polling here before the party conventions has dwindled. That's partly because of a burst of enthusiasm for McCain's selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, but Obama also has been struggling in Pennsylvania to attract the white working-class voters who flocked to Clinton in the primaries.

Both GOP candidates were campaigning in the state Monday.

The stakes are enormous: With 8.5 million registered voters and 21 electoral votes, Pennsylvania could decide who takes the White House.

In McCain, Republicans say they've found a good fit for independent-minded voters in the state, who tend to be socially conservative. More than 10 percent of Pennsylvanians are military veterans, and the state ranks third in the percentage of people 65 and older, offering common ground with a 72-year-old former Vietnam prisoner of war.

There are Democratic strongholds in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and conservative bastions in Pennsylvania's rural central and northern regions. But the state's middle-class Philadelphia suburbs and old industrial towns are home to many voters willing to vote across party lines.

Some haven't forgotten Obama's comment during a San Francisco fundraiser in April that bitter voters in rural Pennsylvanians cling to guns and religion because of their economic frustrations.

The state has fared better economically than its Rust Belt counterparts, Ohio and Michigan. But the number of residents who were unemployed reached a five-year high in August, and there's plenty of worry about the economy and government spending.

Larry Fales Sr., 65, of York, a retired railroad worker, is one of the Democrats who hasn't warmed up to Obama. Taking a break from the Hungry Parrot Pizza Co. where he helps out his son, Fales said he would have voted for Clinton in the election, but now he'll vote for McCain.

Obama is "great at giving speeches and everything like that, but I just don't trust his past, and he promises too much," Fales said. "I don't care who it is, no one can give what he promises he's going to give."

Then there's the issue of race.

Another Democrat, Robert L. Hamilton Jr., 77, a Korean War veteran and retired postal worker, said he's leaning toward Obama but isn't sure about some others.

"The bad part about Obama is you're going to have too many people vote against him because of his race," Hamilton said.

Reaching out to voters like Fales and Hamilton, Obama selected as his running mate Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, a Scranton native with lunchbucket roots.

That helped seal the deal for voter Jay Weissman, 55, a therapist from the suburban Philadelphia town of Wynnewood, who spoke about the campaign while eating ice cream in his parked car.

"I was concerned about his lack of experience, but that has been allayed with the appointment of Joe Biden," said Weissman, a Democrat who said he was a registered Republican until about five years ago. "I feel much better about that now."

McCain, in turn, picked a running mate seemingly tailored to blue-collar Pennsylvania: Palin, an anti-abortion rights candidate who supports gun rights.

That won over Terri Morton, 47, of Lancaster County, who's registered as a Republican but voted for Al Gore in 2000 and Kerry four years ago. She said she was open to voting for Obama, but swung to McCain after watching Palin speak at the Republican convention.

"She's a regular person with real problems, family issues and all that, and that did it for me," Morton said from the clubhouse of the Four Seasons Golf Course, where she works as food and beverage manager.

As on every other issue, Pennsylvanians are hardly unanimous on the veep choice:

* "I trust my wife with anything and everything, and I trust Sarah the same way. She'll make the right decisions," said Phil Reilly, 48, a construction business owner and father of four from Chester Springs.

* "I understand they needed to do that to bring some change in and go after my demographic of women white voters, but it's not enough to sway me," said Gabrielle Raia, 35, a biotech sales representative and real estate agent from Conshohocken.

Recognizing the need to attract blue-collar workers, the Obama team starting running an ad focused on the 2003 closure of a Corning Inc. plant in State College. The ad blames Washington - and McCain help - for selling workers out.

But Mike DuHaime, McCain's political director, said, "His record as one of an independent, as a maverick, brings a special appeal that you need in Pennsylvania."

One place Obama seems to be holding his own is in the Philadelphia suburbs, said Clay Richards, a pollster at Quinnipiac University. The region has historically voted Republican but has been moving more Democratic.

One Republican there, Matthew Curry, 25, an elementary school teacher who was selling lottery tickets at the Brewer's Outlet in Chadds Ford to pick up some extra money, said he thinks McCain is a good guy but too close to Bush.

"I plan on voting for Barack Obama," Curry said. "I like pretty much everything. I like Joe Biden. I agree that he's going for change."

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, Associated Press, September 22, 2008

At a briefing for reporters in June, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe recognized that the battlefield wouldn't remain that wide to the end.

"We have a lot of differing combinations to get to 270, and our strategic imperative is going to be ... to keep as many of those scenarios as possible alive" deep into October, he said.

Over the next 40 days, other states will likely come out of play; the question is how long some of those, from huge ones like Florida to marginal Montana, remain on the table, as well as how competitive McCain can keep his own forays into the Kerry states, in Wisconsin, Michigan, and New Hampshire.

By Ben Smith, Politico, September 22, 2008

"This arrangement makes me deeply uncomfortable," McCain, an Arizona senator, told a gathering of Irish-Americans in Scranton, Pennsylvania. "When we are talking about a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, 'trust me' just isn't good enough."

Wall Street has been rocked by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, with global credit markets seizing up over concerns about the plummeting value of U.S. housing and securities based on home mortgages.

The Bush administration moved last week to restore calm in the markets, asking Congress to approve a plan that would enable the government to acquire up to $700 billion in home and commercial mortgages. The move aims to stabilize the firms by taking the bad assets off their books.

The crisis has dominated the campaign trail over the past week as Democrat Obama and Republican McCain tried to project leadership and outline the principles they believe should guide the process -- although both have been essentially sidelined as the bailout is negotiated.

Obama has seen a steady rise in public opinion polls during the last week, however, with most polls showing the race essentially tied or Obama with a narrow lead and the economy remaining by far the top issue.

At a campaign rally in Wisconsin, Obama said he would aim to prevent another crisis by pushing for measures to curb the influence of lobbyists, streamline and strengthen regulatory agencies, crack down on no-bid government contracts and make government more open and transparent.

REFORM 'BROKEN GOVERNMENT'

"No matter what solution we finally decide on this week, it is absolutely imperative that we get to work immediately on reforming the broken politics and the broken government that allowed this to crisis to happen in the first place," he told a crowd of about 6,000 in Green Bay.

The first-term Illinois senator said an "ethic of irresponsibility" had swept through government, and McCain -- a four-term Arizona senator and 26-year veteran of Washington who has largely favored deregulation -- was part of the problem.

"When it comes to regulatory reform, Senator McCain has fought time and time again against the common-sense rules of the road that could have prevented this crisis," he said.

McCain called for a bipartisan board to establish criteria for which firms get government help. He suggested billionaire investor Warren Buffet -- an Obama supporter -- as a potential member, as well as former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and independent New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

McCain said his plan would keep people from losing their homes while protecting the capital markets, and he needled Obama for failing to put forward his own suggestions.

Obama has delayed offering a detailed plan while the solution is being hammered out in Congress.

"At a time of crisis, when leadership is needed, Senator Obama has simply not provided," McCain said. "And the truth is that we don't have time to wait for Senator Obama's input to act."

In this latest poll, conducted Sept. 11-15, age remained a key determinant in response to the question about women’s concerns. Young women, ages 18-34, chose the Obama/Biden ticket as more empathetic to their needs, while women aged 35-64 went for McCain/Palin. Unlike black and Hispanic women, White women saw McCain and Palin as most understanding of their concerns.

About one in four women who supported Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primaries now said McCain and Palin have a better grasp of women's needs than Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joe Biden.

The Lifetime poll reveals a diversity of women's views on several issues, with many of those differences related to a respondent's race, party identity, marital status and generation.

However, those demographic differences faded when it came to the Democrats' strongest showing in the poll, on a question regarding the economy. The women polled favored the Obama/Biden ticket 57 to 32 percent on which candidate "will help middle class families the most." Polling has shown all year that the economy tops voters' concerns.

The survey comes as women overall favor the Democratic ticket, 48 to 44 percent, according to the weekly summaries of Gallup polling. That marks a wider margin than Democrats enjoyed in 2004 on Election Day, but less than in 2000.

That Democratic drop-off with women since 2000, Gallup polling shows, is tied to Obama's recent downtick in white support among women and men alike. All summer Obama had roughly similar support among white women as Al Gore did in 2000.

Gallup finds McCain now leads with white women 51 to 40 percent, a wider gap than the GOP enjoyed among white women eight years ago.

However, it appears that Obama's message of "change" has struck a chord with women, who in the Lifetime poll gave the Obama/Biden ticket a 14-point advantage on the question, 51 to 37 percent over the McCain/Palin ticket.

Overall, women said Obama and Biden would best "reform the way Washington, D.C. does business" by 47 to 40 percent. But white women narrowly favored the McCain/Palin ticket on that count.

And, independent women gave the GOP ticket an 8-point advantage on the change issue.

When women were asked which ticket could better "win" the war in Iraq, white, Hispanic and independent women, as well as women of every age group, voiced more confidence in McCain/Palin.

But when these women were asked which candidates can most likely "end" the war in Iraq, Obama/Biden earned significantly more support. Women under age 55, Hispanic women, and independent women had more trust in the Democrats. Yet white women voiced more confidence in McCain/Palin to end the war.

Women overall did say the Republican ticket was more ready to lead, though Latinas and black women sided with Democrats. Democrats have a narrow advantage overall, 47 to 40 percent, as more capable reformers of government, though female independents and whites sided with the GOP.

The Lifetime Television/Every Woman Counts campaign poll of 534 American women likely to vote was conducted September 11 to 15, and has a margin of error of 4.4 percent.

McCain praised Paulson and said he had spoken to him several times over the weekend. But the GOP presidential hopeful nonetheless called for a bipartisan oversight board to supervise the proposed bailout, to be led by Warren Buffett or another widely respected business leader.

McCain suggested his one-time rival for the GOP nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg be part of the effort as well. Both men made multimillion-dollar fortunes in business before entering politics.

Earlier, McCain, who just a week ago said the economy was fundamentally sound, said he believed the U.S. financial system is facing a major crisis.

Speaking on NBC's "Today" show, McCain said, "We are in the most serious crisis since World War II."

He also said that despite the ballooning national debt he would not raise taxes if elected president. "History shows us that if you raise people's taxes in tough economic times that makes problems worse," McCain said.

The Arizona senator also called on Congress to move quickly and work with the Bush administration to restore stability to the troubled financial sector. But he said the goal of any action must be to allow homeowners to stay in their homes and prevent Wall Street executives from profiting from a taxpayer bailout.

McCain's comments came at a raucous meeting with an Irish-American group in Scranton, a working-class city in northeastern Pennsylvania that has been a hub of campaign activity and rhetoric throughout the year.

Democratic vice presidential contender Joe Biden hails from Scranton and on the campaign trail often speaks of his blue-collar roots here.

Before last spring's Pennsylvania primary, Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton also laid claim to the town, where her father grew up and is buried. Clinton defeated Barack Obama by 10 percentage points, in part due to her strong showing among white working-class voters in the state.

At the rally, McCain was introduced by the state's Republican senator, Arlen Specter, who praised Obama as an "able fellow" who nonetheless lacked McCain's years of experience in Washington.

McCain also took a few friendly questions from the audience, including one from a woman who asked why news organizations had committed so many investigative reporters to look into the background of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate.

"Shame on you, shame on you," the woman shouted at the assembled reporters to applause, while McCain looked on approvingly.

"That is a great question," McCain said. "One thing I want to assure you of is that Governor Palin - she can take it."

The anti-media rant continued on a conference call later with McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt, who manages day-to-day operations and strategy. Schmidt criticized what he called a "compliant media" that he argued hadn't sufficiently investigated Obama's background and campaign claims, and singled out The New York Times, which he called a "pro-Obama advocacy organization."

"It is an organization that is 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate," Schmidt complained.

In response, Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, said the newspaper "is committed to covering the candidates fully, fairly and aggressively. It's our job to ask hard questions, fact-check their statements and their advertising, examine their programs, positions, biographies and advisers. Candidates and their campaign operatives are not always comfortable with that level of scrutiny, but it's what our readers expect and deserve."

Last week really ought to have been the end of the McCain campaign. With the whole country feeling (and its financial class acting) as if we lived in a sweltering, bankrupt banana republic, and with this misery added to the generally Belarusian atmosphere that surrounds any American trying to board a train, catch a plane, fill a prescription, or get a public servant or private practitioner on the phone, it was surely the moment for the supposedly reform candidate to assume a commanding position. And the Republican nominee virtually volunteered to assist that outcome by making an idiot of himself several times over, moving from bovine and Panglossian serenity about the state of the many, many crippled markets to sudden bursts of pointless hyperactivity such as the irrelevant demand to sack the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

And yet, and unless I am about to miss some delayed "groundswell" or mood shift, none of this has translated into any measurable advantage for the Democrat. There are three possible reasons for such a huge failure on Barack Obama's part. The first, and the most widely canvassed, is that he is too nice, too innocent, too honest, and too decent to get down in the arena and trade bloody thrusts with the right-wing enemy. (This is rapidly becoming the story line that will achieve mythic status, along with allegations of racial and religious rumor-mongering, if he actually loses in November.) The second is that crisis and difficulty, at home and abroad, sometimes make electors slightly more likely to trust the existing establishment, or some version of it, than any challenger or newcomer, however slight. The third is that Obama does not, and perhaps even cannot, represent "change" for the very simple reason that the Democrats are a status quo party.

To analyze this is to be obliged to balance some of the qualities of Obama's own personality with some of the characteristics of his party. Here's a swift test. Be honest. What sentence can you quote from his convention speech in Denver? I thought so. All right, what about his big rally speech in Berlin? Just as I guessed. OK, help me out: Surely you can manage to cite a line or two from his imperishable address on race (compared by some liberal academics to Gettysburg itself) in Philadelphia? No, not the line about his white grandmother. Some other line. Oh, dear. Now do you see what I mean?

The Dukakis comparison is, of course, a cruel one, but it raises a couple more questions that must be faced. We are told by outraged Democrats that many voters still believe, thanks to some smear job, that Sen. Obama is a Muslim. Yet who is the most famous source of this supposedly appalling libel (as if an American candidate cannot be of any religion or none)? Absent any anonymous whispering campaign, the person who did most to insinuate the idea in public - "There is nothing to base that on. As far as I know" - was Obama's fellow Democrat and the junior senator from New York. It was much the same in 1988, when Al Gore brought up the Dukakis furlough program, later to be made infamous by the name Willie Horton, against the hapless governor of Massachusetts who was then his rival for the nomination.

By the end of that grueling campaign season, a lot of us had got the idea that Dukakis actually wanted to lose - or was at the very least scared of winning. Why do I sometimes get the same idea about Obama? To put it a touch more precisely, what I suspect in his case is that he had no idea of winning this time around. He was running in Iowa and New Hampshire to seed the ground for 2012, not 2008, and then the enthusiasm of his supporters (and the weird coincidence of a strong John Edwards showing in Iowa) put him at the front of the pack. Yet, having suddenly got the leadership position, he hadn't the faintest idea what to do with it or what to do about it.

Look at the record, and at Obama's replies to essential and pressing questions. The surge in Iraq? I'll answer that only if you insist. The credit crunch? Please may I be photographed with Bill Clinton's economic team? Georgia? After you, please, Sen. McCain. A vice-presidential nominee? What about a guy who, despite his various qualities, is picked because he has almost no enemies among Democratic interest groups?

I ran into a rather clever Republican operative at the airport last week, who pointed out to me that this ought by rights to be a Democratic Party year across the board, from the White House to the Congress to the gubernatorial races. But there was a crucial energy leak, and it came from the very top. More people doubted Obama's qualifications for the presidency in September than had told the pollsters they had doubted these credentials in July. "So what he ought to do," smiled this man, "is spend his time closing that gap and less time attacking McCain." Obama's party hacks, increasingly white and even green about the gills, are telling him to do the opposite. I suppose this could even mean that Sarah Palin, down the road, will end up holding the door open for Hillary Clinton. Such joy!

But Mr. McCain said in an interview here with CNBC and The New York Times that he would press on with his plan to extend the Bush tax cuts and to cut others. Contrary to the warnings of fiscal analysts, he said he believed he could do so and balance the federal budget, which was falling deeper into deficit even before the financial crisis, by the end of his first term.

"I believe we can still balance the budget," he said. "I think that it is restraint of spending, and I think it's growth of government and the economy, and the recovery of our economy. And anything you do that would take more money from the American people who are hurting more now, I think, would be a serious mistake."

Mr. McCain also stuck by his support for allowing workers to invest a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes in stocks and bonds, an approach that Democrats call privatization and that Mr. Obama has used to suggest Mr. McCain would subject retirees to excessive market risk.

In a separate interview earlier in the day, Mr. Obama said that despite the huge new government obligation, he would press ahead with his plans to overhaul the health care system to insure more people, make college tuition more affordable, give a tax cut to the middle class and raise taxes on those making over $250,000 a year.

"The problem that we have," Mr. Obama said, "in part has to do with wages and incomes that have been flat. And so homeowners and ordinary families out there have been working very hard, but it's tough for them to pay the bills and stay afloat with rising gas prices and health care.

"So if we don't address our long-term competitiveness, if we don't address some of the inequities in the tax code, if we're not addressing some of the things that weakened the family budget, then we're not, over the long term, going to solve these larger problems in the financial markets."

Mr. McCain has made speeches and broadcast television commercials recently that highlight Mr. Obama's ties to former leaders of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the mortgage giants at the center of the financial crisis.

Mr. McCain has struck a notably populist tone in addressing the crisis, and in the interview, he set a specific limit on compensation for executives at firms that receive federal assistance. "But the major point," he said, "is that no C.E.O. of any corporation or business that is bailed out by us, that is rescued by American tax dollars, should receive any more than the highest paid person in the federal government."

Mr. Obama continued to assail the philosophy of excessive deregulation that he said was the root cause of the crisis and made clear that the aftermath should include a new regulatory approach.

The deepening financial crisis and the shifting government response to it have challenged both presidential candidates for more than a week, as they struggled to react to a situation that seemed to change each day. In the interviews, they gave some of their most detailed views of the crisis to date.

Mr. Obama warned that the bailout should not be a "blank check" and called for tighter regulation of the financial industry, suggesting he would support imposing federal capital requirements on investment firms. He also emphasized that the plan would have to include more relief for homeowners and distressed communities, a demand being made by Democrats in Congress.

"Regardless of how we got there," he said, "we now have a situation where people's jobs, people's savings, people's retirement accounts, their job security, all that is at risk. And so we've got to take some firm and decisive steps."

Mr. McCain, like Mr. Obama, said an oversight board should be created to monitor how the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., administers the bailout, which calls for the federal government to take toxic assets off troubled financial firms' hands.

"I respect and admire Secretary Paulson, but as far as I can tell, we're placing all those responsibilities in the hands of one person," Mr. McCain said. "I think we need to appoint an oversight board of the most respected people in America, such as maybe Warren Buffett, who's a Obama supporter; Mitt Romney, Mike Bloomberg, so that there can be some kind of oversight of, instead of just putting all this responsibility on a person who may be gone in four months."

Mr. McCain, who has been trying to distance himself from the Bush administration while proposing to continue many of its economic policies, tried Sunday to strike several bipartisan notes.

In a separate interview on "60 Minutes" on CBS, he mentioned that he would like to see Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat who is the attorney general of New York, take over as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission from Christopher Cox, whose ouster he has called for.

He also said on "60 Minutes" that he would remove the political operation from his White House and put it in the Republican National Committee.

The financial crisis and the proposed bailout have become fodder for a heated back and forth in the presidential campaign. Mr. Obama has cast Mr. McCain as a longtime proponent of the kind of deregulation that he says led to the crisis; Mr. McCain has cast Mr. Obama as lacking in the leadership qualities needed in a time of crisis.

Mr. Obama offered guarded praise of how Mr. Paulson is handing the crisis. He stopped short of pledging to keep him in place in an Obama administration, but he said that the gravity of the turmoil in the nation's financial markets was so serious that continuity was important to avert further crisis.

"Getting a new person to start juggling those balls is going to be tricky," Mr. Obama said. "Regardless of who wins the election, the issue of transition to the next administration is going to be very important. And it's going to have to be executed with a spirit of bipartisanship and cooperation."

By John Hardwood and Michael Cooper, The New York Times, September 21, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) - Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks - many calling them "lazy," "violent" or responsible for their own troubles.

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 - about 2.5 percentage points.

Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He's an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.

More than a third of all white Democrats and independents - voters Obama can't win the White House without - agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views.

Such numbers are a harsh dose of reality in a campaign for the history books. Obama, the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, accepted the Democratic nomination on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, a seminal moment for a nation that enshrined slavery in its Constitution.

"There are a lot fewer bigots than there were 50 years ago, but that doesn't mean there's only a few bigots," said Stanford political scientist Paul Sniderman who helped analyze the exhaustive survey.

The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats. President Bush's unpopularity, the Iraq war and a national sense of economic hard times cut against GOP candidates, as does that fact that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans.

The findings suggest that Obama's problem is close to home - among his fellow Democrats, particularly non-Hispanic white voters. Just seven in 10 people who call themselves Democrats support Obama, compared to the 85 percent of self-identified Republicans who back McCain.

The survey also focused on the racial attitudes of independent voters because they are likely to decide the election.

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president - white, black or brown.

Not all whites are prejudiced. Indeed, more whites say good things about blacks than say bad things, the poll shows. And many whites who see blacks in a negative light are still willing or even eager to vote for Obama.

On the other side of the racial question, the Illinois Democrat is drawing almost unanimous support from blacks, the poll shows, though that probably wouldn't be enough to counter the negative effect of some whites' views.

Race is not the biggest factor driving Democrats and independents away from Obama. Doubts about his competency loom even larger, the poll indicates. More than a quarter of all Democrats expressed doubt that Obama can bring about the change they want, and they are likely to vote against him because of that.

Three in 10 of those Democrats who don't trust Obama's change-making credentials say they plan to vote for McCain.

Still, the effects of whites' racial views are apparent in the polling.

Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice.

But in an election without precedent, it's hard to know if such models take into account all the possible factors at play.

The AP-Yahoo poll used the unique methodology of Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park, Calif., firm that interviews people online after randomly selecting and screening them over telephone. Numerous studies have shown that people are more likely to report embarrassing behavior and unpopular opinions when answering questions on a computer rather than talking to a stranger.

Other techniques used in the poll included recording people's responses to black or white faces flashed on a computer screen, asking participants to rate how well certain adjectives apply to blacks, measuring whether people believe blacks' troubles are their own fault, and simply asking people how much they like or dislike blacks.

"We still don't like black people," said John Clouse, 57, reflecting the sentiments of his pals gathered at a coffee shop in Somerset, Ohio.

Given a choice of several positive and negative adjectives that might describe blacks, 20 percent of all whites said the word "violent" strongly applied. Among other words, 22 percent agreed with "boastful," 29 percent "complaining," 13 percent "lazy" and 11 percent "irresponsible." When asked about positive adjectives, whites were more likely to stay on the fence than give a strongly positive assessment.

Among white Democrats, one-third cited a negative adjective and, of those, 58 percent said they planned to back Obama.

The poll sought to measure latent prejudices among whites by asking about factors contributing to the state of black America. One finding: More than a quarter of white Democrats agree that "if blacks would only try harder, they could be just as well off as whites."

Those who agreed with that statement were much less likely to back Obama than those who didn't.

Among white independents, racial stereotyping is not uncommon. For example, while about 20 percent of independent voters called blacks "intelligent" or "smart," more than one third latched on the adjective "complaining" and 24 percent said blacks were "violent."

Nearly four in 10 white independents agreed that blacks would be better off if they "try harder."

The survey broke ground by incorporating images of black and white faces to measure implicit racial attitudes, or prejudices that are so deeply rooted that people may not realize they have them. That test suggested the incidence of racial prejudice is even higher, with more than half of whites revealing more negative feelings toward blacks than whites.

Researchers used mathematical modeling to sort out the relative impact of a huge swath of variables that might have an impact on people's votes - including race, ideology, party identification, the hunger for change and the sentiments of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's backers.

Just 59 percent of her white Democratic supporters said they wanted Obama to be president. Nearly 17 percent of Clinton's white backers plan to vote for McCain.

Among white Democrats, Clinton supporters were nearly twice as likely as Obama backers to say at least one negative adjective described blacks well, a finding that suggests many of her supporters in the primaries - particularly whites with high school education or less - were motivated in part by racial attitudes.

The survey of 2,227 adults was conducted Aug. 27 to Sept. 5. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

By RON FOURNIER and TREVOR TOMPSON, The Associated Press, September 20, 2008

RICHMOND, Va. - As Michelle Obama courted working women in battleground states last week by talking about the tough balancing acts in their lives, she was engaging in a balancing act of her own: Acting as a pointed critic of the Republican ticket while projecting an affable, ladylike (as in first lady) persona.

As they waited for Mrs. Obama to speak at events in Virginia on Wednesday, some Democratic supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the party's presidential nominee, said he might come to regret not picking Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate this year if Ms. Palin and the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, end up with a surprisingly large vote from women. So far, white women are evenly divided between Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, and Ms. Palin has had no effect in expanding the Republican ticket's appeal among women and independents.

Mrs. Clinton is campaigning only once or twice a week for Mr. Obama, as opposed to Ms. Palin's appeals to women at events several times a day. That leaves Mrs. Obama as the Democratic campaign's busiest and most high-profile female surrogate at a time when the fight for women is intensifying.

Yet, as a potential first lady, Mrs. Obama cannot act like a sharp-elbowed fighter. For one thing, some female voters and others are still deciding whether they like Mrs. Obama, according to public opinion polls of her favorability ratings.

"Co-workers of mine who had supported Hillary for president are now backing Palin and McCain, and it breaks my heart," said Emily Moore, a 28-year-old occupational therapist who attended an "Economic Roundtable With Working Women" event with Mrs. Obama here on Wednesday.

"More people think of Michelle Obama as an elitist than Hillary, which is funny to me," Ms. Moore added. "I think it'd be the other way around."

At her campaign stops in Virginia and, on Thursday, in another battleground state, North Carolina, Mrs. Obama thoroughly explained her husband's plans for women and families, like equal pay laws, universal health care and student financial aid. Her empathic side was also on display: She sat with five women in plush chairs on a stage in Richmond - "So here we are, on 'The View,' " Mrs. Obama said - and at one point passed a Kleenex to Mary Henley, a 78-year-old widow who works part-time and may declare bankruptcy.

"Women's votes will make the difference in this race," Mrs. Obama said in Richmond, "so what I urge women to do is understand the issues and vote on the issues."

Yet as Mrs. Obama juggled her own jobs as a political spouse, her critiques of Republican policies had a somewhat muted quality. Unlike Mrs. Clinton, who urged supporters at an event Friday to "defeat the McCain-Palin ticket," Mrs. Obama rarely mentioned Mr. McCain or Ms. Palin by name, and some of her references were a little opaque.

At a roundtable conversation with working women in Richmond, she said the pocketbook struggles middle class families faced were real. "I think it's important for people to know that this isn't in your head, that this is really happening, and we need politicians who understand that," Mrs. Obama said.

Her remark seemed like a counterpoint to the controversial comment by a Republican adviser to Mr. McCain, former Senator Phil Gramm, that Americans were in a "mental recession" over the economy. Of 10 people asked about the remark at the Obama event, none of the audience members instantly recalled that line by Mrs. Obama, though several did remember the Gramm remark.

The next day, in Charlotte, N.C., she said of the election, "People shouldn't make a decision this time based on, 'I like that guy' or 'she's cute.' " Ms. Palin is the only woman on either ticket, but, once the laughter and applause settled down, Mrs. Obama made clear that she was not tweaking the Republican running mate.

"I'm talking about me," Mrs. Obama said.

Mrs. Obama draws sizable crowds and warm receptions almost everywhere she goes. At the event in Richmond, with about 200 people, the audience gave her a standing ovation and laughed at her lighter remarks (like whether her mother was making her daughters do all their homework).

Afterward, several women in the same book club said they were impressed with Mrs. Obama's "family values" - like her concerns for her "precious little people" (her two daughters) - and the way she, with her lawyerly touch, laid out the case for her husband's policies.

"Michelle came across as a first lady to me, very eloquent, but she did not strike me as delivering the tough political message that Hillary or Palin does," said one of the women, Lynalise Woodlief.

More than 2,000 people came to Mrs. Obama's rally at the University of Virginia, meanwhile, where she spoke in turns about policy and, affectionately, about her husband. There were none of the occasional sarcastic quips about him that she made earlier in the campaign.

Charlottesville, the home of the university, is a liberal enclave in Virginia, so Mrs. Obama was not exactly speaking to many undecided swing voters. But some Democrats said it was important for Mrs. Obama to be re-energizing core voters, in light of the fresh interest in Ms. Palin.

"This is challenging - it's hard to get a woman of substance like Michelle or Hillary to go against a woman of illusion like Palin," said Nina Johnston, an Obama supporter, as she waited for the campus rally to begin. "But our Democratic women leaders have to work the base - they've got to make clear what's at stake for women."

The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin Friday, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive.

The wrangling was chiefly between the McCain-Palin camp and the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which is sponsoring the forums.

Commission members wanted a relaxed format that included time for unpredictable questioning and challenges between the two vice-presidential candidates. On Wednesday, the commission unanimously rejected a proposal sought by advisers to Ms. Palin and Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee, to have the moderator ask questions and the candidates answer, with no time for unfettered exchanges. Advisers to Mr. Biden say they were comfortable with either format.

Both campaigns see the four debates as pivotal moments in a presidential race that is not only extraordinarily close but also drawing intense interest from voters; roughly 40 million viewers watched the major speeches at the two parties' conventions. The upheaval in the financial markets has recast the race in recent days, moreover, which both sides believe will only heighten attention for the debates.

A commission member said that the new agreement on the vice-presidential debate was reached late Saturday morning. It calls for shorter blocks of candidate statements and open discussion than at the presidential debates.

McCain advisers said they were only somewhat concerned about Ms. Palin's debating skills compared with those of Mr. Biden, who has served six terms in the Senate, or about his chances of tripping her up. Instead, they say, they wanted Ms. Palin to have opportunities to present Mr. McCain's positions, rather than spending time talking about her experience or playing defense.

While the debates between presidential nominees are traditionally the main events in the fall election season, the public interest in Ms. Palin has proved extraordinary, and a large audience is expected for her national debate debut.

Indeed, both the McCain and Obama campaigns have similar concerns about the vice-presidential matchup in St. Louis: that Ms. Palin, of Alaska, as a new player in national politics, or Mr. Biden, of Delaware, as a loquacious and gaffe-prone speaker, could commit a momentum-changing misstep in their debate.

The negotiations for the three 90-minute debates between the men at the top of the tickets were largely free of brinksmanship. Neither side threatened to pull out, and concerns about camera angles and stagecraft were minor.

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic nominee for president, and Mr. McCain did not intercede personally to settle any disputes. They agreed to one substantive change to the format originally proposed by the debate commission, giving them two minutes apiece to make a statement at the beginning of each segment on a new topic.

Mr. Obama successfully sought to flip the proposed topics for the first and third debates, so foreign policy is now coming first and economic and other domestic issues come last. There is a second debate, in the format of a town hall meeting, in which the candidates will sit on director's chairs and take questions from the audience and Internet users on any topic.

The debate commission had proposed that the first debate be on economic issues and the third on foreign policy - in part, people involved in the process said, because the first debate is usually the most watched, and many voters rank the economy as their top concern.

Mr. Obama wanted foreign policy first to