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In a bold move brimming with confidence,
Democrat Barack Obama broadened his advertising campaign on Friday
into two once reliably Republican states and further bedeviled
rival John McCain by placing a commercial in the Republican
presidential nominee's home state of Arizona.

      Obama's campaign, capitalizing on his vast financial resources
and a favorable political climate, announced that it was going back
up with advertising in Georgia and North Dakota, two GOP states
that it had teased with ads earlier in the general election
campaign but then abandoned.


      In what could be a final ignominy for McCain, Obama campaign
manager David Plouffe said the campaign would also begin airing ads
in Arizona, a state McCain has represented in Congress for 26
years. 

Plouffe said the race has tightened in Arizona, Georgia and
North Dakota. A recent poll from McCain's home state showed the two
candidates in a statistical dead heat.


      In a slew of states, "the die is being cast as we speak," he
said. "Sen. McCain on Election Day is not just going to have to
carry the day, but carry it convincingly."


      McCain campaign manager Rick Davis derided Obama's moves: "We
encourage them to pick other states that we intend to win" to
spend their money.


      McCain was spending a second straight day touring economically
ailing Ohio, a swing state with 20 electoral votes that McCain
aides acknowledge is central to a victory on Tuesday. McCain was
behind Obama in polls in the state.


      While the Obama campaign continued to tie McCain to the
unpopular President Bush, McCain assailed Obama's economic policies
as recipes from the far left of American politics.


      McCain told a rally in Hanoverton, Ohio, that Obama "began his
campaign in the liberal left lane of politics and has never left
it. He's more liberal than a senator who calls himself a
socialist," a reference to Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent
from Vermont.


      Campaigning with McCain was former GOP rival and one-time New
York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who told the crowd, "John McCain was
right about the single most important decision that had to be made
in the last four years and that was to stick it out in Iraq."

      Earlier, in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America,"
McCain said, "Sen. Obama's economic policy is from the far left of
American politics and ours is in the center," McCain said. "He
wants to raise people's taxes - that's clear."


      Obama is proposing tax increases on families making over
$250,000 and individuals making over $200,000 and tax cuts for the
95 percent of workers making less than $200,000.


      McCain also was to campaign Friday in Columbus, Ohio, with
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.


      In an interview with The Columbus Dispatch published Friday,
Schwarzenegger made no effort to disguise the challenge facing
McCain He told the newspaper it will be a "major struggle for him
to win."


      But, he added: "I have seen him in those major struggles in the
past when he has come back when everyone counted him out,"
Schwarzenegger said. "During the primaries, he came back and got
nominated."


      Obama was to spend the day campaigning across the Midwest, with
a quick stop home in Chicago to see his kids on Halloween. His
first stop was where his campaign took off, in Des Moines, Iowa,
where he upset Hillary Rodham Clinton in the campaign's first
contest.


      Independent polling in Iowa shows Obama consistently ahead in
the race for the state's seven electoral votes, but McCain's
campaign maintains the race is tighter than it appears.


      As McCain sought to close gaps in states such as Iowa, Obama was
expanding the field of play. His campaign plans to air two ads in
Georgia and North Dakota - a tandem of positive and negative
commercials.


      One ties McCain to President Bush, showing a man adjusting a
review mirror in a car as an announcer says: Wonder where John
McCain would take the economy? Look behind you, John McCain wants
to continue George Bush's economic policies."


      The other relies on Obama's message of "unity over division"
and reminds viewers that Obama has been endorsed by mega-financier
Warren Buffett and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.


      Plouffe said that in deference to McCain, the campaign would
only run the positive ad in Arizona.


      "It's Sen. McCain's home state," Plouffe said. "We're
cognizant of that."


      McCain is planning a midnight rally on Monday in Prescott,
Ariz., and his election party Tuesday night in Phoenix.


      Plouffe said the expanded ad campaign was not diluting their
advertising in other battlegrounds. "We're always looking for
opportunities to expand the map," he said.


      After the Halloween stop at home, Obama was to head for a rally
in Highland, Ind., a town in Democratic-dominated Lake County where
Obama hopes to run up the vote to offset Republican domination
elsewhere in Indiana.


      Meanwhile, former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper,
were to campaign for Obama in Florida.


      Sprinting into the weekend, Obama was headed to the West, hoping
to claim Colorado and maybe more. McCain was flying to Virginia,
usually friendly country for the GOP but another place where polls
give Obama the edge. McCain aides said the Arizona senator was
likely to swing west also, to play to his base.


      There was nothing complicated about their closing arguments to
voters, with the economy the top concern. Obama is focused on
linking McCain to Bush and blaming both for the nation's economic
woes.


      McCain had hoped the election would turn on issues like the Iraq
war, where he could use his military background to convince voters
he's the best choice as commander in chief. But he effectively has
conceded that it's all about the economy and people's financial
struggles.
           

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In a bold move, Democrat Barack Obama broadened his advertising campaign on Friday
into two once reliably Republican states and placed a commercial in John McCain's home state of Arizona.

Obama runs ad in Arizona; McCain says Obama's a leftist

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