BOTH CAMPAIGNS HIT REPUBLICAN TERRITORY
Barack Obama took his campaign into Republican territory Friday while John McCain found himself defending once-safe areas as the presidential candidates concentrated on states won four years ago by the GOP.
It was a more feisty McCain who appeared in Florida, appealing to senior citizens worried about Social Security and falling retirement funds.
"Senator Obama says that he wanted to spread your wealth around," he said. "When politicians talk about taking your money and spreading it around, you'd better hold onto your wallet."
McCain has rejected any tax increase in tough economic times. Obama has said that his plan would not raise taxes for 95 percent of Americans.
In Virginia, Obama lambasted McCain's health care plan, saying that it could lead to deep cuts in Medicare. He will visit Missouri, North Carolina and Florida in the next few days.
McCain also will visit North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and Missouri in coming days. All are states captured by Republicans in 2004 and where polls show Obama running strongly. With McCain running far behind in Michigan and Pennsylvania, his path to the White House looks similar to President Bush's in 2004, making it crucial for him to hold states such as Florida.
ACORN FUROR BUILDS; OBAMA SEEKS SPECIAL PROSECUTOR
The furor over the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now's voter registration drive exploded with new controversies Friday, including a call by Obama for an independent prosecutor and the disclosure of a death threat against an ACORN worker.
Republicans, including McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin, have verbally attacked the group in recent days, alleging a widespread vote-fraud scheme, although they've provided little proof of such a systematic effort. On Friday, Palin told supporters in Ohio: "This group needs to learn that you here in Ohio won't let them turn the Buckeye State into the Acorn State."
Democrats counter that the GOP is trying to whip up fears of voter fraud so it can knock students and low-income minorities off the voter rolls to enhance McCain's chances of victory.
Tensions began to escalate Thursday with disclosures that the FBI is investigating ACORN and the possibility that it's engaged in a vote-fraud scheme.
On Friday, Obama's legal counsel, Robert Bauer, wrote Attorney General Michael Mukasey, charging that the inquiry is politically motivated and requesting that he broaden a special prosecutor's investigation to examine the origin of the ACORN inquiry.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment
Earlier Friday, ACORN said that one of its senior staffers in Cleveland had received a death threat and that its Boston and Seattle offices had been vandalized Thursday.
THIRD-PARTY DEBATE IS CALLED OFF
The presidential debate for third-party candidates scheduled for Sunday at Columbia University in New York was canceled after none of the four candidates -- independent Ralph Nader, Libertarian Party nominee Bob Barr, Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney and Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin -- had committed to it.
OBAMA ADS HEADED TO ONLINE GAME NEAR YOU
A groundbreaking ad campaign by the Obama campaign appears to be targeting the couch vote: online gamers.
The new ads appear on signs and billboards inside 18 online video games -- from "Madden NFL '09" to "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" -- and will target games in 10 battleground states with a picture of Obama and directions to their early-voting campaign site, VoteForChange.com.
It's the first time, industry officials say, that a political candidate has taken advantage of a new technology that allows "dynamic in-game advertising" on games that are updated through the Internet on game units such as Xbox 360.
DEBATE OVER THE 'PR0-AMERICAN' VOTER
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden mocked rival Sarah Palin's comment in North Carolina that she loves visiting "pro-America" parts of the country, arguing that the entire nation is patriotic.
"It doesn't matter where you live, we all love this country," Biden said Friday in New Mexico.
According to published reports, Palin told a North Carolina fundraiser Thursday that the best of America was not in Washington, D.C., but in small towns like the one in Alaska where she served as mayor. "Being here with all of you hardworking, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation. This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans," she said.
The Obama campaign issued a news release asking what part of the country isn't pro-America.
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