MIAMI — With less than three weeks to go before the election, the trajectory of the presidential campaign was apparent Friday in the candidates' schedules.
Republican John McCain was defending Florida, which every GOP White House occupant in modern times has won, but where McCain trails in recent polls. And Democrat Barack Obama was campaigning in Virginia, which has gone Republican for decades.
Both candidates pursued themes they have accented since Wednesday's final debate.
For Obama, that meant tying the Arizona senator to an unpopular President Bush.
"Sen. McCain doesn't look like President Bush; he doesn't have that Texas accent like President Bush. And I don't blame Sen. McCain for all of President Bush's mistakes," Obama said, addressing more than 8,000 people at the Roanoke Civic Center. "After all, he's only voted with George Bush 90% of the time."
For McCain, that meant trying to cast the Illinois senator as a tax-and-spend Democrat who should not be trusted to guide the nation out of its economic straits.
"Sen. Obama claims that he wants to give a tax break to the middle class, but not only did he vote for higher taxes on the middle class in the Senate, his plan gives away your tax dollars to those who don't pay taxes," McCain told about 6,000 supporters at Florida International University in Miami.
"That's not a tax cut, that's welfare," he declared as the crowd booed loudly.
While the candidates pursued voters in big rallies, their forces arrayed for potential legal fights over the election results.
The Obama campaign called on Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey to strip the Justice Department of jurisdiction over voter fraud allegations, saying the department was coordinating with the Republican National Committee and the McCain campaign to harass voters.
That move followed news reports that the FBI has opened a voter registration investigation into the community organizing group known as ACORN. Officials with the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now have denied wrongdoing and said they had called registration officials' attention to limited irregularities.
The Obama campaign suggested that the Justice Department's interest in the case echoed political pressure the Bush White House put on federal prosecutors to press voter fraud cases before the 2006 election.
The pressure -- and the later removal of nine Justice Department prosecutors -- has prompted an ongoing investigation by a special prosecutor, to whom the campaign also sent its complaint.
