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Obama set for prime-time appeal to voters
AFP - Wednesday, October 29
NORFOLK, Virginia, (AFP) - - Democrat Barack Obama geared up Wednesday to deliver a presidential-style address to the nation on the final stretch of his electrifying White House campaign against John McCain.
Upping the pace to an intense new level six days before next Tuesday's election, Obama was to hold his first joint rally with former president Bill Clinton at a midnight event in Orlando, Florida.
The Illinois senator, who at 47 is bidding to be America's first black president, is riding high in the polls and Republican McCain is beset by reports of internal disarray between his aides and running mate Sarah Palin.
In Virginia late Tuesday, Obama said history was in the air as he builds a double-digit poll lead in a state that last voted for a Democratic White House hopeful in 1964.
In fact, as he campaigned in the picturesque Shenandoah Valley, Obama said the last Democratic presidential contender to come to the region was the racist Stephen Douglas -- Abraham Lincoln's opponent before the 1861-1865 Civil War.
"That's a long distance to travel," he said, while stressing in a now-daily warning against complacency: "Don't think for one minute that power will concede without a fight.
"We're going to have to work like our future depends on it, because it does."
McCain, 72, was Wednesday also campaigning in the Sunshine State, a pivotal battleground that decided the 2000 election in favor of President George W. Bush after a recount fiasco that went all the way to the Supreme Court.
An estimated two million Floridians have voted early and queues have grown so lengthy that Governor Charlie Crist -- a moderate Republican who is reportedly critical of McCain's campaign -- has extended balloting hours.
Florida had appeared a lock for McCain not many weeks ago, but a Los Angeles Times poll late Tuesday had Obama ahead by 50-43 percent. It also had Obama on 49 percent to McCain's 40 in Ohio, another major toss-up state.
The newspaper said that in both states, Obama "has opened commanding leads over McCain among women, young people, first-time voters and blacks and other minorities."
McCain is portraying Obama as an ultra-liberal politician plotting to raise taxes across the board. "Senator Obama is running to be redistributionist-in-chief, I'm running to be commander-in-chief," he said.
But that message does not appear to be resonating with voters. A new ABC News-Washington Post poll said Obama was the first Democratic hopeful since Clinton to lead his Republican rival on taxes, by 10 points.
Overall, the Democrat led McCain by 52-45 percent in the poll.
Obama's 30-minute, prime-time television pitch was being taken out at a cost estimated by media analysts at up to five million dollars on three of the four national networks: CBS, NBC and Fox.
Virtually guaranteeing a huge audience, the "infomercial" was to directly precede the start of the latest and potentially decisive game of baseball's World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Florida's Tampa Bay Rays.
Aides were tight-lipped about the contents but the broadcast was likely to emulate the slickly produced biographical video shown at the Democratic convention in late August as Obama offers his "closing argument" to voters.
The Chicagoan was heading to Florida after a rally earlier Wednesday in North Carolina, which like Virginia is threatening to turn Democratic blue for the first time in decades.
Clinton meanwhile could help Obama seal the deal with the kinds of white, working-class voters who backed the former president's wife Hillary in the Democratic nominating slugfest earlier in the year.
Bill Clinton, who simmered long over his wife's defeat, was heading to Florida from the rust-belt state of Pennsylvania, where more than 9,000 supporters turned out at an Obama rally Tuesday despite bone-chilling rain.
Further west, a Suffolk University poll showed Obama surging to a lead of 50 percent-40 percent over McCain in Nevada, which along with Colorado and New Mexico offer the Democrat another route to the White House if his strategy in states east like Florida and Ohio fails to come off.
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Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally in Norfolk, Virginia. Obama geared up Wednesday to deliver a presidential-style address to the nation on the final stretch of his electrifying White House campaign against John McCain.
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