What's behind the candidates technical difficulties?.

ZANESVILLE, Ohio (CNN) – In the final days of a presidential campaign, nothing is left to chance. With so much planning and set-up going into every stop, no detail is too small. So everything runs with clockwork precision, right? Uh, yeah, sure. But when events veer slightly off course, the candidates are quick to point some playfully partisan fingers.

In Reno on Saturday, Barack Obama’s microphone died mid-sentence during a rally. He walked the stage and shook hands for the three minutes while crews worked on the problem. When the sound came back, he told the crowd as he resumed, “Hello, hello, hello! I told you folks are having trouble making their electricity bills. Either that or somebody from the McCain campaign kicked our plug out of the socket. That was just a joke, guys, there’s no evidence of foul play. Now, where was I?”

Sunday, the lights went out over the stage during the introductions to John McCain at a high school in Zanesville, Ohio, Senator Lindsey Graham was left speaking in the shadows, filling until the problem was fixed so McCain could take the stage. To laughter, McCain said as he began, “Thank you for the warm welcome. I think the lighting is brought to you courtesy of the Democratic National Committee.”

At least we think they’re being playful.

Sen. McCain is on a Joe the plumber tour.

INTERSTATE 4, Florida (CNN)– Joe the plumber goes on tour?

Well sort of.

Driving through Florida on the "Straight Talk Express," Sen. John McCain rallied voters and talked to small business owners during the "Joe the Plumber: Keep Your Wealth" tour.

“You know whether it is Joe the plumber in Ohio or whether it is Joe over here –thank you Joe. There's Joes all over here,” said McCain at his second stop, a rally in Ormond Beach, Florida. “Senator Obama wants to spread the wealth around. That means fewer jobs at their businesses and fewer jobs here in Florida.”

People cheered as they held signs that said, "McCain will help the working man" and "My husband is Tom the plumber". Two fork lifts held the "Country First" sign above the platform.

McCain kicked off the tour at the Starlite Diner in Daytona Beach with four small business owners, or in campaign speak, four Joe the plumbers.

Their actual names and professions are florist Richard Rivers, pub owner Tom Curtis, food store owner Patricia Surgine and Thomas Crowe, president of a lumber supply company and a former professional football player.

Diners at neighboring tables manned their cell phone cameras as the business owners told McCain their troubles, particularly with Barack Obama's tax plan.

At the morning rally, held at the lumber supply company owned by Crowe, the Arizona Senator got very fired up about two topics: the Bush presidency and his Democratic opponent.

“I call on the Administration to act now and buy up these home loan mortgages and keep people in their homes,” he said as he pounded on the podium. ”And why is the Secretary of the Treasury not ordering them to do that?”

McCain also emphasized concerns about Obama's ability to lead.

“You know it is amazing," he said "Are you ready to trust Americans’ national security to an untested leader in these times of war?”

He also mocked Obama’s explanation of why Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden said his running mate would be tested by an international crisis as president.

“Yesterday Senator Obama tried to explain away this by warning – by saying that his running mate sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes. Really? Really? That’s another way of saying he accidentally delivered some straight talk to America.”

At his third and fourth stops, he also met with small business owners. The third stop was held at a dentist's office in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Hispanic business owners were targeted at the later stop, a Puerto Rican restaurant in Orlando.

After his meeting, he made a statement to the press corps where he talked about one of the women he spoke with inside the restaurant, noted the new jobless report, and said he was optimistic about his chances in Florida.

“We’re doing well in Florida, I’m happy with the polling numbers. It’s going to be a battleground state, we got a lot of work to do but with Charlie Crist, Mel Martinez and a lot of the great support we have across this state we will win and we will win this election.”

The six stop tour will take the McCain campaign through Florida along the I-4 corridor. This part of the state is home to nearly 20 percent of undecided voters which both campaigns consider the key to Florida’s 27 electoral votes.

McCain and Palin are increasingly suggesting Obama is a socialist.

CONCORD, North Carolina (CNN) – John McCain stepped up his rhetoric against Barack Obama on taxes in his weekly radio address, comparing his plan to 'socialist' programs that would “convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth.”

The remarks were part of a theme McCain has used since the final presidential debate that criticizes Obama’s philosophy, but his most recent comments were the first time he directly invoked the word 'socialist.'

In the radio address that aired Saturday morning, McCain didn't directly call Obama a socialist, but he let the now-famous Joe 'the Plumber' Wurzelbacher nearly do it for him.

“You see, [Obama] believes in redistributing wealth, not in policies that help us all make more of it. Joe in his plainspoken way, said this sounded a lot like socialism,” McCain said.

In an interview with ABC last week, Wurzelbacher said Obama's proposal to raise taxes by 3 percent on those making $250,000 and over is a "very socialist view."

Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin has used the word in speeches the last two days as well.

Also in the pre-taped radio address, McCain said, “At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives. They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Senator Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut it's just another government giveaway.”

McCain did not repeat the wording in his appearance at a rally in Concord, but did allude to those European socialist countries that like to "spread the wealth around."

"Spread the wealth around. We have seen that movie before in other countries and attempts by the liberal left before," McCain said.

In his speech, McCain also said said, “This explains some big problems with my opponent's claim that he will cut income taxes for 95 percent of Americans. You might ask: How do you cut income taxes for [95] percent of Americans, when more than 40 percent pay no income taxes right now? How do you reduce the number zero? That's the key to Barack Obama's whole plan: Since you can't reduce taxes on those who pay zero, the government will write them all checks called a tax credit. And the Treasury will have to cover those checks by taxing other people…the Obama tax increase would come at the worst possible time for America.”

Asked why McCain used the word socialist in the radio remarks, a spokesman told CNN, “That’s what it is, 'spreading the wealth' around is socialism.”

In a July interview with the Kansas City Star, McCain said Obama had the “most extreme” record in the Senate. He said at the time in a comment he has since repeated on the trail, “his voting record… is more to the left than the announced socialist in the United States Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont."

Pressed if he considered Obama a socialist, McCain shrugged and said, “I don't know."

In remarks this week, Palin has referred to Obama’s encounter with Wurzelbacher in Ohio last Sunday. At a rally in West Chester, Ohio Friday where one banner in the crowd read, “Obama is a Socialist/Marxist," Palin said, “Joe suggested that that sounded a little bit like socialism,” she said. “Whatever you call it, I call it bad medicine for an ailing economy, and it’s what Barack Obama will do to those who want to create jobs and we’re willing to call Barack Obama on it.”

In North Carolina Saturday, McCain also invoked the specter of a huge filibuster proof Democratic majority in the house.

“By the way did you happen to see that Speaker Pelosi said she anticipates a 250 seat majority, “said McCain to loud boos from the crowd. “My friends we can’t let that happen. They’ll raise taxes and increase spending and they will concede defeat in Iraq.”

Keating is a McCain campaign co-chair.

(CNN) - A prominent surrogate for John McCain on Thursday raised Barack Obama's admitted cocaine use as a teenager and said the Illinois senator should speak candidly about it to the American people.

Speaking to Dennis Miller, a comedian and conservative radio talk show host, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating said Obama should be more forthright about his background and what he called his "very extreme" record.

"He ought to admit, ‘You know, I've got to be honest with you. I was a guy of the street. I was way to the left. I used cocaine. I voted liberally, but I'm back at the center,'" Keating, a co-chair of McCain’s campaign, said Obama should tell voters. "I mean, I understand the big picture of America. But he hasn't done that."

An aide to John McCain said Keating was not directed by the campaign to make the comments.

"We didn’t ask him to do it,” the aide said. “He didn’t clear it with us, but obviously he’s read Senator Obama’s books.”

The Obama campaign has not responded to the comments.

The remarks ring similar to comments made by prominent New Hampshire Democrat Bill Shaheen, a Hillary Clinton supporter, during the primary. Shaheen, who predicted in December that Obama’s drug past would be a major Republican talking point if her were the Democratic nominee. He later apologized for the comments, but stepped down from his role in the Clinton campaign. Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson, another Hillary Clinton backer, also had to apologize after making overt references to Obama's drug use at campaign rally in South Carolina.

In Obama's 1995 book Dreams of My Father, he writes that he was once headed in the direction of a "junkie" and a "pothead. Referring to his emotional struggles as a young man, Obama writes, "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though."

Obama did speak during his primary campaign about his past experimentation with drugs and alcohol in high school.

"I made some bad decisions that I've actually written about," he told New Hampshire high school students last November. "There were times when I, you know, got into drinking, experimented with drugs. There was a whole stretch of time where I didn't really apply myself a lot."

Keating is a McCain campaign co-chair.

(CNN) - A prominent surrogate for John McCain on Thursday raised Barack Obama's admitted cocaine use as a teenager and said the Illinois senator should speak candidly about it to the American people.

Speaking to Dennis Miller, a comedian and conservative radio talk show host, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating said Obama should be more forthright about his background and what he called his "very extreme" record.

"He ought to admit, ‘You know, I've got to be honest with you. I was a guy of the street. I was way to the left. I used cocaine. I voted liberally, but I'm back at the center,'" Keating, a co-chair of McCain’s campaign, said Obama should tell voters. "I mean, I understand the big picture of America. But he hasn't done that."

An aide to John McCain said Keating was not directed by the campaign to make the comments.

"We didn’t ask him to do it,” the aide said. “He didn’t clear it with us, but obviously he’s read Senator Obama’s books.”

The Obama campaign has not responded to the comments.

The remarks ring similar to comments made by prominent New Hampshire Democrat Bill Shaheen, a Hillary Clinton supporter, during the primary. Shaheen predicted in December that Obama’s drug past would be a major Republican talking point if her were the Democratic nominee. He later apologized for the comments, but stepped down from his role in the Clinton campaign. Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson, another Hillary Clinton backer, also had to apologize after making overt references to Obama's drug use at campaign rally in South Carolina.

In Obama's 1995 book Dreams of My Father, he writes that he was once headed in the direction of a "junkie" and a "pothead. Referring to his emotional struggles as a young man, Obama writes, "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though."

Obama did speak during his primary campaign about his past experimentation with drugs and alcohol in high school.

"I made some bad decisions that I've actually written about," he told New Hampshire high school students last November. "There were times when I, you know, got into drinking, experimented with drugs. There was a whole stretch of time where I didn't really apply myself a lot."

Sen. John McCain spent part of the day making phone calls to make sure negotiations go well on the bailout plan.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A top aide to Senator John McCain said the Republican presidential candidate will not go to Capitol Hill Saturday afternoon, as negotiators meet to work out a deal on the financial bailout plan.

Senior adviser Mark Salter just told reporters outside McCain’s campaign headquarters in Arlington, VA that the Senator will instead continue to make calls to members of Congress.

Salter said he will not go because “he can effectively do what he needs to do by phone. "He’s calling members on both sides, talking to people in the administration, helping out as he can.’’ The campaign said it will release a list of people McCain spoke with later Saturday.

Senator Barack Obama, traveling for campaign events in North Carolina and Virginia, spoke Saturday with Congressman Barney Frank, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Senator Harry Reid, his campaign said. The Democratic presidential candidate was briefed on the latest with the negotiations.

McCain returned to Washington early Saturday morning from Memphis following last night’s debate because of the bailout situation. He decided to deliver a Saturday evening speech by satellite to a group in Columbus rather than traveling there in person.

Salter said, “We hope to have a deal in place so we can get back on the trail.”

Update: According to the McCain campaign, the Republican nominee called President Bush, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Sen. Mitch McConnell , Sen. Judd Gregg, Sen. Jon Kyl, Leader Boehner, Rep. Blunt, Rep. Putnam, Rep. Cantor, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Rep. Tom Davis, Rep. Chip Pickering, Rep. Heather Wilson, Rep. John Shadegg, Rep. Flake, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn on Saturday.

Sen. John McCain's campaign is doing what it can to counter the publicity from Sen. Barack Obama's trip.

(CNN) - Sen. John McCain sharpened his attacks against Sen. Barack Obama on Thursday, saying he'd rather give a speech in Germany as president than as a presidential candidate.

Obama was in Berlin for the latest leg of an international trip intended to bolster his foreign policy credentials at home and set out his vision for a new era of transatlantic cooperation.

Watch: McCain says he'd prefer to speak in Germany as President

McCain was campaigning Thursday in Ohio, focusing on health care.

Speaking to reporters outside Schmidt's Restaurant and Banquet Haus, a German eatery in Columbus, Ohio, McCain responded to Obama's Berlin speech, which attracted large crowds at the Victory Column.

Watch: McCain discusses Obama's Berlin speech

"Well, I'd love to give a speech in Germany ... a political speech or a speech that maybe the German people would be interested in," he said. "But I would much prefer to do it as president of the United States rather than as a candidate for the office of the presidency."

Full story

McCain campaigned in Pennsylvania Wednesday.'

BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania (CNN) – John McCain defended comments he made in an interview on Tuesday when he incorrectly argued that the surge in Iraq gave way to the so-called “Anbar Awakening” – when Sunni leaders joined forces with U.S. troops to fight Al Qaeda in the fall of 2006.

The Arizona senator told reporters Wednesday afternoon that when he refers to the surge, it encompasses not just the January 2007 increase in troop levels but also the counter-insurgency that started in Iraq’s Al Anbar province months prior.

“A surge is really a counter-insurgency strategy, and it’s made up of a number of components,” McCain said. “This counter-insurgency was initiated to some degree by Colonel McFarland in Anbar province, relatively on his own.”

“General Petraeus said that the surge would not have worked, and the Anbar Awakening would not have taken place, successfully, if they hadn’t had an increase in the number of troops,” McCain added.

“I’m not sure frankly that people really understand that a surge is part of counter-insurgency strategy which means going in, clearing, holding, building a better life, providing services to the people,” he continued.

In an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric on Tuesday, McCain said that the surge led U.S. forces to ally with Sunnis, “And it began the Anbar Awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history."

The Obama campaign quickly seized on the discrepancy in the timeline between when the Awakening started and the U.S. later added 30,000 boots on the ground. Before McCain responded, his camp hit back saying that Democrats were minimizing the military’s role in recent successes in Iraq.

Watch McCain slam Obama on Iraq.

(CNN) - After Barack Obama spoke out against the surge again Tuesday, John McCain's campaign responded by repeating athe charge that the Illinois senator favors “unconditional withdrawal.”

Earlier: Obama: Stability in hands of Iraqis

“By continuing his opposition to the surge strategy long after it has proven successful and by admitting that his plan for withdrawal places him at odds with General David Patraeus, Barack Obama has made clear that his goal remains unconditional withdrawal rather than securing the victory our troops have earned and the surge has made possible," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said.

The McCain campaign is also conducting a conference call with Rep. Heather Wilson, Sen. Sam Brownback, and McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann to keep up the pressure on Obama.

Listen: McCain surrogates target Obama over his Iraq policy

UPDATE: McCain himself also took a swipe at Obama over his Iraq policy at a New Hampshire town hall Tuesday.

"You might recall that Senator Obama, my opponent, said the surge would not succeed, that he wanted us out. If he had his way, we'd been out last March. .. We would have had defeat," he said. "And my friends, that would have been a catastrophe for the United States of America. He was wrong then, he's wrong now and he still failed to acknowledge that the surge succeeded ... remarkable, remarkable. "

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Straight Talk Express - perhaps the most visible symbol of Arizona Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign - is taking to the skies.

The Republican Party's presumptive nominee will unveil his new campaign airplane on Monday: a Boeing 737-400.

The aircraft shares its name with McCain's ever-present campaign bus, which has been a staple of the candidate's 2000 and 2008 campaigns.

The 95-seat plane - with seats for the candidate, his staffers and the press - has the "Straight Talk Express" logo emblazoned on its fuselage.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - John McCain's national finance co-chairman has stepped down - the latest adviser to leave the Republican senator's presidential campaign due to ties with lobbyists.

Former Texas Congressman Thomas G. Loeffler, a major fundraiser for McCain, is the fifth person to leave the campaign in the last eight days over questions about lobbying or past connections to lobbyists.

"Mr. Loeffler has resigned from his position with the campaign," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds told CNN Sunday.

For the most part, McCain keeps a veil of privacy around his faith.

ABOARD THE STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS (CNN) - John McCain, who rarely talks about his faith publicly, discussed some of his religious beliefs with reporters Wednesday – including the question of whether he might consider being baptized again.

The presumptive Republican nominee talked with journalists traveling with him from Kentucky to West Virginia about his home congregation, North Phoenix Baptist Church.

"Pastor Dan Yeary has a message I enjoy and appreciate," he said, adding that he and his family have "grown close to [Yeary] over the years" and that he tried to attend services at the church whenever he was home in Arizona.

"The message that Dan Yeary conveys of Christian love and redemption is one that I welcome," said McCain. "And I'm always spiritually helped and assisted when I attend those church services, as I think most Americans are when they attend church services."

The Arizona senator, who was raised an Episcopalian, has attended North Phoenix for nearly two decades, but is not a member because he has not been baptized into the church.

On Wednesday, he told reporters that he had been baptized in Panama, where he was born, and talked about a photo in his memoirs of himself as a baby in a baptismal gown, with his father and grandfather.

"It's like a dress," he chuckled.

But he was more guarded about his current plans with regard to baptism, calling them "a private thing."

"I've been in discussions with Pastor Yeary, and we'll continue those discussions," he said. "It's a personal thing, it's a very personal thing concerning my faith and I am proud of my faith, I am proud of my belief and the sustenance and the redemption that I have received.

"And my faith was tested in extraordinary fashion and it was my faith that got me through not the next day, or the next hour but the next minute."

In an interview with Baptist Press last month, Yeary said that McCain was less open about his faith because he was "a historical Episcopalian, and if you and I sat down with him and started talking Baptist talk, he just doesn't have that kind of vocabulary."

But he also told BP that McCain "has a strong faith and he is committed to Christ. I don't have any doubt about it."

On Wednesday, McCain cited the "the importance of Judeo-Christian values of 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'"

"There's enormous implications of that simple phrase," he added, calling it "one of the fundamental principles of leadership."

Obama campaigned in North Dakota Friday.

(CNN) - John McCain criticized Barack Obama Saturday for not denouncing comments from a speaker at a North Dakota Democratic Party event calling the Arizona senator a "warmonger."

The comments in question came Friday evening at an event in North Dakota where Barack Obama also spoke. Radio talk show host Ed Schultz addressed the crowd, during which he criticized McCain's support of the Iraq war and called him a "warmonger." Obama was not present for Schultz's comments and spoke later at the event.

"I hope that in keeping with the spirit of Sen. Obama, that they condemn, that Sen. Obama will condemn such language since it was a part of his campaign," McCain said. "But that kind of language is unnecessary for this campaign. I think its very clear how I feel about war and my experiences with it."

Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday McCain should not have been described that way.

"John McCain is not a warmonger and should not be described as such. He's a supporter of a war that Senator Obama believes should have never been authorized and never been waged," she said.

Obama's campaign also notes Schultz is not an official supporter of the campaign and was asked to speak by the North Dakota Democratic Party, not the Obama campaign.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds noted the Arizona senator denounced a radio-talk show host last February who at a campaign event repeatedly referred to Obama's middle name, Hussein, while criticizing him.

"The quickness he showed in rejecting the charged environment should reinforce in the minds of voters that there are some elected officials, like John McCain, that walk the walk, and others that are only talking," Bounds said.

(3:45: Updates with McCain comments)

(CNN) – Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, told reporters Monday that the Bush administration’s surge strategy in Iraq is succeeding and, at the same time, recognized the 4000 Americans who have died in Iraq since 2003.

“Gen. Petraeus is correct when he says that the central battleground in the struggle against al Qaeda is Iraq and Osama bin Laden just confirmed that again with his comments last week,” McCain told reporters, referring to a recent statement by bin Laden that called Iraq “the perfect base to set up the jihad to liberate Palestine.”

“I have commented on hundreds of occasions of the sacrifice the great and brave young Americans have made in Iraq and elsewhere in the world in the struggle against radical Islamic extremism,” said McCain. “I wear a bracelet on my hand, not only as a symbol of the sacrifice that a brave young man named Matthew Stanley, but that of 4000 other brave young Americans who have served and sacrificed as well. My thoughts and my prayers go out to those families every day,” McCain added.

The Arizona senator also took the opportunity to target Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama over their views on the Iraq war. “It is obvious that they are dead wrong and they are wrong when they say that we should leave Iraq immediately,” he said. “The surge is succeeding and it’s time that they acknowledge that the surge is succeeding,” he added.

On Monday, Sen. Clinton mentioned the 4000th U.S. fatality in Iraq at the beginning of an economic speech and Sen. Obama released a statement regarding the milestone.

Related video: Watch Sen. McCain's comments on Iraq

– CNN’s Tasha Diakides and Martina Stewart