MENTOR, OHIO — Campaigning amid another round of troubling economic news, John McCain and Barack Obama dashed across Republican-leaning swing states Thursday, sparring over their plans to spur a recovery.
Hours after the government reported that the nation's gross domestic product had shrunk over the summer and that consumers had dramatically cut their spending, Obama placed the blame squarely on the Bush administration, telling voters in Florida: "This didn't happen by accident."
"Our falling GDP is a direct result of a failed economic theory of eight years of trickle-down, Wall-Street-first, Main-Street-last policies that have driven our economy into a ditch," the Illinois senator said in Sarasota.
In his four public events across Ohio, McCain never specifically mentioned the new reports, but spoke more broadly about the struggles of America's middle class and promised "to get this economy out of the ditch."
Asked about the economic numbers in an interview with Fox News, McCain said that "these are tough times" and that he was particularly concerned about the slide in consumer confidence.
"It is of the utmost seriousness, and also I don't think, frankly, [we] have focused on one of the real catalysts of the problem -- if not the catalyst -- and that is home ownership," McCain told Fox before outlining his plan to buy up struggling homeowners' mortgages.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the economy essentially went into reverse in the third quarter, shrinking by 0.3% -- the deepest decline in economic demand since 2001. Personal consumption declined 3.1% in the three months ending Sept. 30. It was the first time since 1991 that consumer spending dropped outright, and the biggest such decline since 1980.
Both candidates kept a tight focus on economic issues as they campaigned in states that President Bush won in 2004.
McCain set off on a two-day swing through Ohio that began in the conservative farm country outside Toledo and ended in economically struggling Youngstown. In four rallies, he warned voters that Obama's plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts for top earners would harm small businesses. (The group FactCheck.org has said that only about 650,000 small-business employers would be affected -- not 23 million, as McCain has said.)
