MAUMEE (Ohio) - REPUBLICAN John McCain was to begin a stubborn final push in the crucial battleground state of Ohio on Thursday as grim new figures on the US economy boosted Democratic rival Barack Obama.
Mr McCain was to kick off a two-day bus tour of Ohio at an event in the symbolically named town of Defiance, hoping to rally support in a state which has suffered nearly 100,000 job losses in the past 12 months.
Mr McCain's tour got underway against a backdrop of gloomy economic data which suggested a recession may be looming, the US government reported the economy shrank by 0.3 per cent in the third quarter.
The news dealt another blow to Mr McCain, who has struggled to effectively counter Mr Obama's attempts to tie him to the economic legacy of outgoing President George W. Bush with the November 4 election five days away.
The McCain campaign attempted to spin the new figures by warning that Mr Obama's economic manifesto would speed up a recession.
'Today's announcement ... confirms what Americans already knew: the economy is shrinking,' McCain adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin said in a statement. 'Barack Obama would accelerate this dangerous course.'
But Mr Obama said the news was final proof that Republican economic policies enacted by President George W. Bush and endorsed by McCain had been an abject failure.
'The decline in our GDP didn't happen by accident - it is a direct result of the Bush administration's trickle-down, Wall Street first, Main Street last policies that Mr John McCain has embraced for the last eight years and plans to continue for the next four,' the Democrat said in a statement.
'We need to grow our economy by creating jobs, providing tax relief for middle-class families, and helping people stay in their homes, and that is exactly what I will do as president,' he said.
On Wednesday, Mr McCain renewed his attacks on Mr Obama's character and security credentials while campaigning in Florida, a move clearly designed to deflect attention away from the economy.
Yet a series of polls have consistently shown that the economy remains the overwhelming concern for voters and Obama put the issue front and center of his 30-minute infomercial broadcast on US networks on Wednesday.
Mr Obama was to strike deep into Republican held territory on Thursday, targeting three battleground states in the climactic run-up to next Tuesday's vote.
After his 30-minute appeal on national television late Wednesday, which cost at least three million dollars to air, Mr Obama held a midnight rally with former president Bill Clinton in the latest burial of Democratic hatchets.
Mr Obama beat Mr Clinton's wife Hillary to the Democratic nomination, but the ex-president delivered a fulsome endorsement at his first joint campaign event with the party's 2008 champion in front of 35,000 supporters in Kissimmee.
'The presidential campaign is the greatest job interview in the world. And on Tuesday, you get to make the hire,' Mr Clinton said, contrasting the economic prosperity of his own 1990s tenure to the crisis now sweeping the nation.
Mr Obama is stepping up the pace on the final approach to the most consequential election in a generation, as the United States grapples with the financial hurricane and two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Democratic front-runner was to hit three states on Thursday, departing Florida after a morning rally for more events in the raging battlegrounds of Virginia and Missouri.
Pursuing his quest to be elected America's first black president, Mr Obama ended his special broadcast with a live cut to the thumping climax of a rally attended by 20,000 supporters in Sunrise, Florida late on Wednesday.
The ad, which aired on three networks before the decisive World Series baseball game, featured patriotic tropes, intensely personal moments and stories of real Americans struggling to make ends meet.
The 47-year-old Democrat, promoted in the broadcast as a loving family man who overcame hardship to reach the pinnacle of politics, pledged to remake the American Dream for all and safeguard the nation from foreign threats.
'We've seen over the last eight years how decisions by a president can have a profound effect on the course of history - and on American lives,' he said intently to the camera.
'This election is a defining moment. The chance for our leaders to meet the demands of these challenging times and keep faith with our people.'
