PHOENIX — John McCain told a veterans group Tuesday that Barack Obama's comments about U.S. leadership around the globe invite "more trouble, violence and aggression."
Campaigning in Kansas City, Mo., Obama slammed McCain's economic agenda, saying the Arizona senator was "not promising to do anything different than George Bush did."
The day's back-and-forth captured efforts by each White House hopeful to play to his political strengths. Polls show voters put more faith in McCain on foreign policy but favor Obama on the economy.
McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, also accused his Democratic rival of distorting his policy proposals, including McCain's plan to give sick and wounded veterans the option of seeking medical care outside the government's Veterans Affairs facilities.
McCain insisted that the arrangement would expand, not curtail, existing VA services. Obama and some veterans have charged that the access plan would effectively privatize the VA system and chiefly benefit the wealthy.
"I don't expect this will deter the Obama campaign from misrepresenting my proposals, but lest there be any doubt, you have my pledge: My reforms would not force anyone to go to a non-VA facility and do not signal privatization of the VA," McCain told the 90th national convention of the American Legion.
Speaking to workers at an American Airlines facility in Kansas City where hundreds could soon be laid off, Obama mocked McCain's upbeat remarks about the U.S. economy in recent months, saying they show that he is out of touch.
"I don't think he realizes what ordinary American families are going through," Obama said. "I don't think the Bush administration understands what ordinary American families are going through. But I do. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States of America -- [to] move this country in a new direction."
Obama cited figures showing that average family incomes had increased under President Clinton and declined under President Bush. Poverty has worsened, home foreclosures are on the rise, and Americans are finding health coverage increasingly difficult to afford, he said. Yet McCain, he said, offers no significant change from Bush's economic policies.
"So if you think that the last eight years have been good, then you need to go ahead and vote for him," Obama told the crowd.
