A Big Rally and Talk of Economy as Obama Visits N.H.

By Jonathan Weisman
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Sen. Barack Obama took his newly aggressive campaign against Republican opponent Sen. John McCain to an open-air rally here, castigating the senator from Arizona as a Johnny-come-lately to the cause of change and imploring about 8,000 Granite State citizens not to be distracted by the GOP's barrage of negative attacks.

"The McCain-Palin ticket, they don't want to debate the Obama-Biden ticket on the issues because they're running on eight more years," he said, beneath a sunny September sky. "They will try to distort my record, and they will try to undermine your trust in what the Democrats want to do.... But the times are too serious for those strategies to work this time."

After a long series of more intimate events in workplaces and high school gyms, the Manchester rally saw the campaign returning to a large-crowd format. The McCain campaign has castigated such populous gatherings as mere "celebrity" worship, but also adopted the model since the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the ticket gave his campaign new energy.

The Obama rally was dialed down a notch in light of Hurricane Ike ravaging Texas, with the campaign scrapping an appearance by vice presidential running mate Sen. Joseph Biden and Obama opening with an appeal for the Red Cross and to help the victims of Ike.

"During difficult times, during moments of tragedy, the American people come together," he said.

But Obama quickly pivoted to a more aggressive stump speech focused squarely on the struggling economy, saying "there are a lot of quiet storms going on all across America," in the form of job losses, spiraling health care and college costs and schools that are "underfunded and uninspired."

"People are concerned not just for their immediate well-being, but they're concerned about what happened to that promise, what happened to that dream? Are we going to be the first generation that passes on a country that is a little less prosperous, a little less unified and a little meaner than the last generation?" he said, repeating the phrase that has become the theme of his campaign since the Democratic convention. "We are here to say, 'Enough is enough.'"

As he spoke, the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee officially unveiled a campaign commercial that had begun running yesterday in swing states, castigating McCain as a tool of Washington lobbyists. "His campaign manager lobbies for corporations outsourcing American jobs," the add states, flashing an image of McCain with his campaign manager, Rick Davis. "The campaign chairman he picked last year ... a bank lobbyist," it continues, with an image of McCain and former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm. "If seven of McCain's top advisers are lobbyists, who do you think will run his White House?" the ad asks.

Tucker Bounds, a spokesman McCain-Palin 2008, quickly retorted in a post-rally statement: "It says a lot about Barack Obama's judgment that while his campaign canceled his appearance on Saturday Night Live and his running mate stayed home, Obama went ahead and delivered a series of scathing personal attacks. Today's attacks mark a new low from Barack Obama."

The Obama campaign couldn't let that pass, and Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton issued a statement of his own. "We will take no lectures from John McCain who is cynically running the sleaziest and least honorable campaign in modern Presidential campaign history," he said in an e-mail. "His discredited ads with disgusting lies are running all over the country today. He runs a campaign not worthy of the office his is seeking."

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