Crucial US debate as Obama pulls ahead

The rivals intensify their attacks leading into the second presidential debate. This one will allow an audience to pose questions.

U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) greets supporters during a campaign rally in Asheville, North Carolina, October 5, 2008.

The US Democratic nominee Barack Obama is gaining ground in hard-fought battleground states, new polls said today, piling pressure on his Republican rival John McCain, ahead of their second debate clash. Mr Obama's lead has stretched to five points from three in Midwestern Wisconsin, and to eight points from six in north eastern New Hampshire, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey.

The two rivals are neck-and-neck at 49 per cent in solidly Republican North Carolina, and in the crucial state of Ohio, where voters have chosen the winner in the last 11 elections, Mr Obama holds a three per cent lead over Mr McCain. A Washington Post-ABC poll of Ohio voters also released today gave the Democrat a six-point edge in the Midwestern state. Mr McCain and Mr Obama intensified their attacks leading into the second of three presidential debates, this one to be staged in a "town hall" format in which audience members get to pose questions.

The debate takes place less than a month before the Nov 4 vote, to decide the next president of the USA. The 72-year-old Mr McCain dug in his heels with repeated questions about Mr Obama's track record and a refrain by his running mate Sarah Palin that Obama was "palling around with terrorists". "What has this man ever actually accomplished in government?" Mr McCain asked supporters yesterday.

"What does he plan for America? In short, who is the real Barack Obama? But my friends, you ask such questions, and all you get in response is another angry barrage of insults." Mr Obama's campaign countered that Mr McCain was ignoring the world financial crisis and attempting to divert attention from shady economic dealings in his past, particularly a massive banking scandal more than 20 years ago involving the Arizona senator.

"If John McCain wants to have a character debate, then I'm happy to have that debate because Mr McCain's record, despite him calling himself a maverick, actually shows that he is continually somebody who relies on lobbyists for big oil and big corporations," Mr Obama said. The first debate crackled with disputes over the economy, Iraq and terrorism. Neither contender landed a knockout punch, but Mr Obama was judged the winner in snap polls.

This time, McCain is promising to be even feistier as he battles to knock Mr Obama off his stride and arrest a polling slide that has accelerated since voter displeasure with Republican economic policies began to mount.

However, the "town hall" format of the debate could divert from attempts to wage personal attacks, with the worsening financial crisis a top concern after stocks plunged despite President George W Bush's signing of a US$700bn rescue package on Friday. The McCain campaign has aired a series of negative advertisments casting the Illinois senator as a raving liberal who would endanger the lives of US troops abroad and usher in a new era of interventionist, tax-raising government.

The former prisoner of war's campaign has also hammered away at Mr Obama's ties to professor of education William Ayers, a bomb-throwing militant and part of the Weather Underground movement during the Vietnam War.

In response, Mr Obama pointed to his opponent's embroilment in a devastating 1980s financial scandal and rolled out a new broadcast and e-mail onslaught recalling Mr McCain's connection to jailed tycoon Charles Keating, the collapse of whose savings and loan firm wiped out the savings of many elderly retirees.

Mr McCain was part of a group of lawmakers known as the "Keating Five" who received gifts and favours from the businessman and intervened with regulators to insist his company was in good health before it collapsed. Mr McCain escaped with a formal censure by the Senate in 1991, but spoke of the searing embarrassment caused by the scandal and went on to become a crusader for ethics reform. * AFP