MIAMI: Democrat Barack Obama geared up yesterday to deliver a 30-minute prime-time campaign pitch on national television networks, as polls suggested his duel for the White House with John McCain may be tightening. Obama’s 30-minute, prime time television pitch was being taken out at a cost of $5 million (BD1.9m) on CBS, NBC and Fox.
Upping the pace to an intense new level six days before next Tuesday’s election, Obama was to hold his first joint rally with Bill Clinton in Orlando, Florida.
Obama’s bulging campaign coffers and grass-roots organisation is allowing the him to push deep into Republican territory, forcing McCain to pour resources into “safe states”.
Obama urged his supporters to guard against complacency.
“Don’t think for one minute that power will concede without a fight,” he told supporters at a rally in Virginia.
McCain was also campaigning in Florida, a pivotal battleground that decided the 2000 election in favour of President George W Bush after a recount fiasco.
McCain kicked off campaigning with a series of radio interviews renewing attacks on Obama for his links to 1960s radical Bill Ayers. “I think this whole issue of the relationship with Bill Ayers needs to be known by the people,” McCain said on Radio Mambi.
A new Quinnipiac University poll showed Obama with a still sizeable lead in Ohio and Pennsylvania. He is ahead in Florida by 47-45 per cent.
A poll from Rasmussen Reports showed McCain closing to within three points of Obama for the first time in more than a month.
An ABC News-Washington Post poll said Obama was the first Democrat since Clinton to lead his rival on taxes, by 10 points. He led by 52-45pc, overall.
McCain and Sarah Palin accused the Los Angeles Times of protecting Obama by withholding a videotape of him with Palestinian-American professor and Israel critic, Rashid Khalidi, a longtime friend of Obama.
l University of Kentucky authorities said they were investigating on who hanged an effigy of Obama, with a noose around its neck, from a tree in the campus .
