McCain, Obama battle into last weekend

By Jeff Mason

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee John McCain on Friday seized on California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's star power in Ohio, a state critical to his hopes of clawing back Democrat Barack Obama's lead going into Tuesday's election.

Obama, who is ahead in national opinion polls and in this Midwestern state that has been crucial to Republican victories in the last two presidential votes, warned his supporters to expect attacks from McCain in the last days of the campaign.

On the second day of a bus tour through Ohio, McCain was joined by Schwarzenegger and together they stepped off the bus at the last stop of the day, a noisy rally in Columbus.

Schwarzenegger, who starred in many action movies before turning to politics, said Obama's four years as a senator from Illinois paled in comparison to the 5-1/2 years McCain spent in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp.

"John McCain has served his country longer in a POW camp than his opponent has served in the United States Senate," Schwarzenegger said.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I only play an action hero in my movies. But John McCain is a real action hero," he said.

McCain told the crowd he feels he has momentum.

"I know a winning campaign when I see one," he said. "We're a couple of points back. Arnold said it best. The Mac is back. We need a new direction and we have to fight for it."

Obama was in Iowa, a state in which he already appeared to have a big lead. Campaign aides said he was visiting as a symbolic move to mark where he began his quest for the presidency by winning Iowa's primary contest last January.

"The people of Iowa I will always be grateful to you," Obama, in rolled-up shirt sleeves on an unseasonably warm and sunny morning, said at the start of his speech. "What you started here in Iowa has swept the country."

He warned his supporters to expect to see from the McCain camp "more of the slash and burn, say-anything, do-anything politics, throw everything up against the refrigerator and see if anything sticks, a message that's designed to divide and distract; to tear us apart instead of bringing us together."

'WE'RE HITTING OUR STRIDE'

McCain's vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was campaigning in Pennsylvania, hoping to help McCain win a state that voted Democratic in the last four elections. Obama leads there but it is the one Democratic-leaning state that McCain aides think their man has a shot at stealing.

Palin told Reuters in a telephone interview that "we're hitting our stride now."

"I'm a runner so I know what this feels like, and what it's supposed to feel like at the right time, where you're getting your second wind. Now is the time and I'm confident this new movement we're feeling will lead us to victory," she said.