McCain, Obama key in on pivotal states
Republican running mate Sarah Palin launches a series of rallies in Florida. McCain visits Virginia and Pennsylvania, while Obama travels through Nevada, Colorado and Missouri.
Reporting from Los Angeles and New Port Richey, Fla. -- Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin appealed to older Americans today, kicking off the first of a trio of rallies in the pivotal state of Florida on the final Saturday of the presidential campaign.
Palin told the crucial voting group in the Sunshine State that GOP presidential candidate John McCain would protect Social Security, and she attacked his Democratic rival.
"Barack Obama goes around promising a new kind of politics, but then he comes here to Florida and he tries to exploit the fears and worries about Social Security and Medicare to our retirees," Palin told thousands of supporters in Sims Park, where Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden held a rally Monday.
Electoral map: A map in Sunday's Section A, showing how states might vote, indicated New Jersey had one electoral vote. It has 15 electoral votes.
"That is the oldest and cheapest kind of politics there is," she said, making an argument she used at a later rally in Polk County, Fla.
In visits and campaign advertisements in Florida, Democrats have questioned McCain's support for the Bush privatization plan that would have allowed younger workers to invest their Social Security taxes in the stock market. Democrats argue that senior citizens would have been hard hit in their retirement income by the recent financial market collapses. Republicans argue that the proposal, which never passed Congress, would not have affected those currently collecting Social Security.
Palin insisted at the rallies that the GOP ticket is committed to protecting Social Security, and pledged not to eliminate a single Medicare benefit.
"John McCain is a man who has always kept faith with America, and he will always keep faith with America's senior citizens -- I promise you that," she said.
Both parties are fighting fiercely as they go after Florida's 27 electoral votes. President Bush carried Pasco County, where New Port Richey is located, by 10 percentage points in 2004 after narrowly losing it in 2000. Biden plans three stops in Florida on Sunday and Obama returns again Monday.
Palin also criticized the Democratic economic plan, as did McCain during an appearance in Newport News, Va. -- one of two stops he will make today in the state. Virginia hasn't voted for a Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, yet polls show Obama leading.
From Virginia, McCain heads to Pennsylvania, the largest Democratic state where his campaign is still waging a serious fight for electoral votes.
