Both candidates focus on Florida
By BETH REINHARD AND LESLEY CLARK
McClatchy Newspapers
MIAMI -- On the hunt for Florida's treasure trove of electoral votes, the nominees of both political parties traversed the state Wednesday, carrying a sense of urgency in the final days of a race already churning record-setting early voter turnout.
Democrat Barack Obama has been gaining ground in Ohio, Colorado, Virginia and Nevada - all states won by President Bush in 2004 - forcing Republican John McCain to increasingly pin his hopes on Florida.
"On Nov. 4, we've got to win the state of Florida, my friends, and we're going to win here," McCain said Wednesday morning at Everglades Lumber in West Miami, where about 1,000 people gathered.
Across the Broward County line in Sunrise, Obama addressed about 20,000 people at the BankAtlantic Center, many of whom never took their seats. "I got two words for you. Six days," Obama said, drawing a roar from the crowd.
Obama's rally was featured on national television at the tail end of his 30-minute commercial, and an interview on Comedy Central's The Daily Show was taped at a nearby hotel.
The fierce contest has spawned ads tailor-made for Florida voters, with former Sen. Bob Graham touting Obama's tax plan on the radio and Gov. Charlie Crist expected to appear in a television spot for McCain.
A CNN/TIME poll released Wednesday found Obama ahead by four percentage points in Florida, while a Quinnipiac University poll said the race was too close to call.
That survey showed the race tightening in the last week, with pollster Peter Brown noting that "time is running out."
The Democratic Party is heading into Election Day with a big cushion of early votes. Between ballots cast at the polls and by mail, Democrats are sitting on a 166,311-vote advantage.
In a state rife with unemployment and foreclosures, the nominees focused on their remedies for reviving the economy.
McCain told a cheering crowd at the Miami lumberyard that his Democratic opponent wants to "spread the wealth."
"Sen. Obama is running to be redistributionist-in-chief. I'm running to be commander-in-chief," McCain said.
Obama countered that what McCain calls "socialism" - his plan to cut taxes for people earning less than $250,000 - he calls "opportunity." Obama also sought to turn the tables on McCain's charges that he is inexperienced and risky.
"Sen. McCain says that we can't spend the next four years waiting for our luck to change, but let me tell you something: The biggest gamble we can take is embracing the same old Bush-McCain policies that have failed us for the last eight years," Obama said.
The nominees picked a mix of stops across Florida that they hoped would blend into a recipe for capturing the state's vast and diverse terrain.
For Obama, that meant revving up the Democratic faithful of South Florida and bringing former President Bill Clinton to Orlando to help him win independent voters.
On Thursday, he will seek to make inroads in Republican-leaning Sarasota.
McCain's formula included mobilizing voters in populous Miami-Dade, grabbing television time in Palm Beach County and standing with military brass in the Tampa Bay area, one of the most competitive regions of the state. Running mate Sarah Palin is scheduled to return to that area on Saturday.
The overlapping trips by the nominees reinforced the pivotal role that the Hispanic community will play in the 2008 election.
Obama courted the heavily Puerto-Rican community in Kissimmee, calling those votes "critical." Campaigning with Spanish-speaking former Gov. Jeb Bush, McCain sought to lock down politically influential Cuban-American voters in Miami, whom he said in a radio interview could "be vital to whether I win Florida or not."
On the radio and at the Miami lumberyard, he joked that Fidel Castro "really hurt my feelings" by expressing a "preference" for Obama. The Democratic nominee has said he would be willing to meet with hostile world leaders in the hope of sparking democratic reform.
"I'll sit down and talk with one of the Castro brothers," McCain said. "I'll sit down with them right after they empty the political prison, right after they have free elections, right after the human rights organizations are functioning." McCain tweaked his traditional stump speech remarks on oil drilling, reflecting the sensitivity of the issue in coastal Florida.
"We will drill offshore and we will drill now, with the agreement of the state of Florida," he said.
"If we're going to drill off the shore of Florida, then you deserve more of those revenues. They shouldn't be sent to Washington. They should be sent to Tallahassee."
In Tampa, McCain returned to foreign policy, questioning Obama's readiness for defending the United States and saying he wants to leave Iraq too quickly.
"Now he obstinately opposes the need to defend the young democracy of that country," McCain said. "The question is whether this is a man who has what it takes to protect America from Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and other grave threats. He has given no reason to answer in the affirmative."
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Obama brushed off the criticism of his experience, concentrating on lofty themes of unity and hope that have inspired many voters.
"It's about a new politics," he said.
"A politics that calls on our better angels instead of encouraging our worst instincts, one that reminds us of the obligations we have to ourselves and one another."
(Miami Herald staff writers Adam H. Beasley, Evan S. Benn, Laura Figueroa, Jennifer Lebovich, Patricia Mazzei, Robert Samuels and Fred Tasker and pool reporter Janet Zink of the St. Petersburg Times contributed to this report.)
