Obama, McCain attack each other on economy

By Steve Holland

POTTSVILLE, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama slammed each other's economic plans on Monday as wrong for the current downturn as they butted heads in Ohio and Pennsylvania in launching an eight-day dash to the election.

Trailing in the polls, McCain attempted to gain traction on the economy by appearing with economic advisers at a Cleveland hotel and vowing to quickly take steps to restore confidence in the wilting U.S. stock market, keep people in their homes and create jobs if elected on November 4.

Obama, holding a poll lead nationally and in many battleground states, began making what his campaign called a "closing argument."

In Canton, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Obama rallied supporters not to let up in their drive to gain Democratic control of the White House. "We can't afford to slow down, sit back. We cannot let up for one day or one minute or one second in this last week," he said.

"In one week, at this defining moment in history, you can give this country the change we need," he said.

Twenty-one months after he began an uphill climb that has culminated with him "so close" to the White House, Obama said, "My faith in the American people has been vindicated."

In Washington, court documents disclosed that two white supremacist skinheads were arrested in Tennessee over plans to go on a killing spree and eventually shoot Obama. The plan did not appear to be advanced. Obama would be the first black U.S. president.

McCain and Obama rallied their core supporters and reached out to undecided voters in Pennsylvania and in Ohio, a state critical to Republican victories in the last two presidential elections. No Republican has won the White House without carrying Ohio.

Polls have Obama leading in Ohio and several other states that President George W. Bush won in 2004, putting Arizona Sen. McCain in a perilous position.

Obama, a senator from Illinois, is comfortably ahead of McCain in Pennsylvania, but McCain hopes to score an upset.

Obama held steady with a 5-point lead over McCain among likely U.S. voters nationally in a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby national tracking poll released on Monday.

In Dayton, Ohio, McCain said electing Obama would leave a "dangerous threesome" of Democrats in charge of the U.S. government, including House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, who would need to raise taxes to pay for their ambitious spending plans.

ATTACK OVER REMARK

In Pottsville, McCain talked up a remark Obama made in a radio interview seven years ago.

In the comment to Chicago Public Radio being circulated by Republicans, Obama discussed the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement and said the Supreme Court then "never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society."