DETROIT, Michigan, Saturday (AFP) - The US presidential election campaign went into full swing Friday under the shadows of a struggling economy, with unemployment figures soaring to a five-year high and triggering recession fears.
A day after John McCain accepted nomination at his party's convention to be the Republican presidential candidate, the Arizona senator and his Democratic rival Barack Obama hit the campaign trial on the last lap of the White House race.
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| McCain and Palin take the stage at a campaign stop in Cedarburg, Wisconsin on Friday. Reuters. |
With fresh data showing 84,000 jobs lost in August, pushing unemployment to a five-year high of 6.1 percent, the US economy was in front and centre of the campaign.
The Labour Department report -- considered one of the best indicators of economic momentum -- marked the eighth consecutive month of shrinking nonfarm payrolls, and was worse than expected by private economists.
Obama seized on the new figures on Friday and mocked President George W. Bush and McCain for not “spending a lot of time worrying about the economy and all these jobs that are being lost on their watch.”
Noting that the Republican leaders had been emphasizing in recent days that the economy was fundamentally sound despite high oil prices, a weak housing market, credit squeeze and inflation pressures, Obama asked, “Now, what's more fundamental than having a job?”
The 47-year-old Illinois senator, addressing workers in Duryea, Pennsylvania, also lambasted Republicans for failing to address the issue of the US economic downturn during their convention in St Paul, Minnesota. “These people spent three days and you wouldn't know what people are going through in the neighborhoods because they didn't talk about it,” Obama said.
“Everywhere you go people are working harder and harder just to get by,” he said. “And so, people just don't have as much money at the same time as the cost for everything from gas to food to health care have all skyrocketed.”But McCain and his newly-minted running mate Sarah Palin, on a swing through Wisconsin, were quick to attack back.
The 72-year-old McCain told a Wisconsin rally that he understood people were struggling in the tough economy and vowed to cut taxes and “stand on your side and fight for your future” and for more employment. “We're going to create millions of new jobs, many in industries that will be the engine of future prosperity,” McCain said.
Later Friday in Detroit, Michigan, he told a national meeting of police officers that his opponent was too weak and inexperienced to implement the change his campaign is based upon.
“This ticket is the ticket to shake up Washington because Senator Obama doesn't have the strength to do it,” McCain said after receiving the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police.
“If you want real change, send the ones who have already done it. Send a team of mavericks who aren't afraid.”The Vietnam war hero laid out his policy platform at the convention Thursday, exactly two months from election day, arguing a character forged in war gave him the judgment and vision to lead from the White House.
His speech ushered in the critical phase of the US election, a frenetic cross-country marathon including three face-to-face debates, which will decide whether he or Obama moves into the White House.
McCain, who has a reputation of bucking Republican party orthodoxy, promised he and Palin, 44, would shatter the political gridlock in Washington.
Democrats however dismissed McCain as no agent of change and tied him to the unpopular Bush, who was rarely mentioned during the party's convention.
McCain is attempting to co-opt Obama's mantle of change in a year in which polls show Americans overwhelmingly think their country is heading in the wrong direction.
McCain's primetime convention speech, watched on television by millions of Americans, was briefly interrupted by several anti-Iraq war protestors who had sneaked into the crowd.
One held up a black sign reading “You can't win an occupation,” and started chanting, but was quickly drowned out by the crowd cheering “USA, USA,” and then hustled away by security staff. |
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