[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/31/joe-biden.jpg caption="Biden says GOP attacks are over the top."]
KETTERING, Ohio (CNN) – Joe Biden always closes his speeches by telling supporters that once the election is over, they have to reach out to Republicans, even those who have conducted “scurrilous” attacks against Obama. The same critics, Biden said Friday afternoon, will be calling Barack Obama “the 44th President of the United States of America” after November 4.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we need to move past the politics of division and attack,” Biden told supporters at rally, the first stop on a two day bus-tour through Ohio.
“Over the past weeks, the Republicans have gone way over the top in my view, calling Barack Obama every name in the book, and it probably will get worse in the next three and a half to four days.”
“If you look at who he is, what he's done, and what he plans to do for this country,” Biden continued, “if you work for us in the closing days and choose hope over fear, after next Tuesday the very critics he has now and the rest of America will be calling him something else. They will be calling him the 44th president of the United States of America, our commander-in-chief Barack Obama!”
John McCain released an ad Friday that was void of any negativity or direct mention of Obama, but tells voters, "don't hope for a stronger America, vote for one." McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis told reporters Friday morning that their campaign would outspend Obama's in the closing days.
Biden delivered his campaign’s “closing arguments” in a high school gym in central Ohio, a swing state where CNN’s poll of polls suggests Obama leads John McCain by 5 percentage points, 49 to 44 percent, with 7 percent of the state’s voters still undecided. The Delaware senator's battleground state tour continues over the weekend, with more stops in Ohio, Indiana and Florida.