DES MOINES — After trading barbs over the financial crisis and the collapse of the rescue package, John McCain and Barack Obama on Tuesday softened their rhetoric, at least in their public appearances, calling for bipartisanship and pledging to work with reluctant members of Congress to craft a palatable solution.
The two senators acted as pitchmen for the bailout, arguing that the rescue of financial institutions is vital to the fortunes of the middle class. And both campaigns said the candidates would return to Washington today to cast their votes if the Senate takes up the legislation, as expected.
"One of the reasons why Congress failed to act in fact is because it hasn't really sunk in that the people who are hurting and are being hurt are Main Street: families, small businesses," McCain said during an economic round table at a manufacturing plant here. As examples, he cited Sonic drive-in restaurant franchisees and students at a technical college in Wisconsin whose access to bank loans has been cut off.
"Those kinds of people that are the engine of our economy," he said.
Both men also sought to reassure voters wary of risking so much taxpayer money.
"This is not a plan to just hand over $700 billion of your money to a few banks on Wall Street," said Obama at a rally on the sun-splashed quad of the University of Nevada, Reno.
"If this is managed correctly, we will hopefully get most or all of our money back, possibly even turn a profit on the government's investment -- every penny of which will go directly back to you, the investor, or will be going into drawing down on our national debt," he said.
It was a marked change from Monday, when Obama had mocked McCain's long-standing support for further deregulation of the nation's financial markets, and McCain blamed Obama and congressional Democrats for injecting partisanship into delicate negotiations.
On Tuesday, a little more than a month from election day, the candidates adopted a somber tone, and neither mentioned his rival by name.
But as McCain and Obama showed restraint, both campaigns unveiled critical national television advertisements. McCain's blames Democrats and Obama for the nation's economic crisis, while Obama's criticizes McCain's tax policy and paints him as a continuation of the Bush administration.
Obama campaigned in the Silver State, his fourth visit since the campaign began. Bush won Nevada by 21,500 votes, or 2.5%, in 2004, and it is expected to be a toss-up in November.
