[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/11/01/art.joereddress1101.ap.jpg caption="Sen. Biden took a shot at Sen. McCain during a campaign stop in Indiana Saturday."]
EVANSVILLE, Indiana (CNN) – The morning after Joe Biden told reporters he hoped John McCain would finish the campaign with a positive tone - “his strength” - the Delaware senator said he doesn’t remember a presidential campaign ending so viciously.
“In my view, over the last few weeks, John McCain’s campaign has gone way over the top,” said Biden Saturday at an outdoor rally on Evansville’s Main Street. “They are trying to take the low road to the highest office in the land. It’s not only George Bush’s economic policies that John McCain has bought hook, line and sinker. He’s also bought Karl Rove’s brand of political tactics.”
“It is disappointing, I never thought I’d see this from a McCain campaign,” Biden continued. “They’re calling Barack Obama every name in the book. They are going out in a way that I don’t recall it being more personally vicious.”
As a supporter yelled, “They’re scared!” the Delaware senator predicted that the tone would get worse in the last three days.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/11/01/art.sign2.cnn.jpg caption=" Palin signs made an appearance at a Florida rally – McCain signs did not."] POLK CITY, Florida (CNN) - At a boisterous Sarah Palin rally in Polk City, Florida on Saturday afternoon, one name was surprisingly absent from the campaign décor - John McCain’s.
Watch: Palin campaigns in Polk City, FL Saturday
Looking around the Fantasy of Flight aircraft hangar where the rally took place, one could see all the usual reminders that it was a pro-McCain event. There were two large “Country First” banners hung on the walls along with four enormous American flags meant to conjure the campaign’s underlying patriotic theme. Many of the men and women in the audience wore McCain hats and t-shirts.
But on closer inspection, the GOP nominee’s name was literally nowhere to be found on any of the official campaign signage distributed to supporters at the event.
Members of the audience proudly waved “Country First” placards as Palin delivered her stump speech. Those signs were paid for by the Republican National Committee.
The other sign handed out to supporters read “Florida is Palin Country,” but those signs were neither paid for by the Republican National Committee nor the McCain campaign. In small print, the signs were stamped with the line “Paid for and authorized by Putnam for Congress" - as in, the re-election campaign of Florida congressman Adam Putnam, whose district skirts Polk City.
In fact, Putnam’s name was considerably more prominent than was McCain’s - his campaign had placed a number of large “Putnam for Congress” banners around the event site.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/POLITICS/10/31/early.voting/art.ohio.voters.gi.jpg caption=" An election worker explains a sample ballot on Friday at an early voting location in Dayton, Ohio."] (CNN) - Early voting is changing campaign strategy and voter behavior like no other presidential race in history, experts say, as Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama make final cross-country pushes this weekend.
Both candidates are hoping to reap the lion's share of more than 23 million votes that have been cast nationwide. They're targeting states where polls remain open through the weekend - and, in some cases, into Monday.
Calculations by CNN and other news organizations indicate that many, if not most, of the early votes in more than 30 states are being cast by registered Democrats, although it's unknown who voted for which candidate.
"It would surprise me, but Republican voters in early voting states may simply be holding their ballots," Paul Gronke of the Early Voting Information Center said Friday. "But I wouldn't be surprised to see the Republican race start to catch up a little bit." See where people are voting early
Of 23,298,564 total in-person and mail-in ballots in 25 states, at least 6,057,527 - or 26 percent - were cast by Democrats or Republicans, according to election officials. Of that 6 million, 57.8 percent were Democrats, and 42.2 percent were Republicans. iReport.com: Did you vote early?
Joe Raedle (Getty Images.)
MITCHELLVILLE, Iowa (CNN)– The echoes are still sounding, even though we’re on our way to the next city, and toward Election Day.
“Next Tuesday, voters will say no to the McCain-Palin campaign of fear and smear,” Tom Harkin, Democratic senator from Iowa, was saying to a cheering crowd in downtown Des Moines.
It wasn’t the fear-and-smear insult to John McCain and Sarah Palin that stood out; McCain and Palin were, somewhere in America, being just as insulting to Barack Obama and Joe Biden on this day.
No, what stood out was the “next Tuesday.” Suddenly, the candidates and those who speak on their behalf no longer have to say “in November” when referring to the election. Now it’s down to a single day of the week: Tuesday.
There were, in the Des Moines public park, those twin contemporary hallmarks of presidential campaign rallies: enormous American flags held temporarily aloft by the gigantic orange steel arms of SkyTrak forklifts, and armed men wearing black on surrounding rooftops. Patriotism and firepower, as omnipresent as confetti and brass bands once were.
And the helicopters. Always the security helicopters, buzzing over the crowd.
The word I O W A, just like that, in big, white, blocky welcome-to-the-state-fair style letters with spaces in between each one, greeted the arriving members of the audience, many of whom were walking up Locust Street on a warm and gorgeous autumn day. I had walked with some of them, crossing a bridge that spanned the Des Moines River, and that Bruce Springsteen song that has become as identified with Obama rallies as his campaign button or his photo on posters sounded over the loudspeaker system, indicating that he would soon be present.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/10/24/art.bidencrisis.ap.jpg caption="Biden invited questions from traveling reporters for the first time in weeks."]LIMA, Ohio (CNN) – Joe Biden invited questions from his traveling press corps for the first time in almost eight weeks on Friday night, rejecting reports that the campaign has muzzled his famous talkative behavior and saying he hopes that he and John McCain will still be friends after this contentious election is over.
“I don’t know, I hope [the friendship] is intact, John and I have not had a chance to speak,” Biden said, standing in a burger joint with his wife and one of his granddaughters. “I hope [it’s] intact because I still admire him, I still like him.”
“We have strong, strong, fundamental disagreements on policy, and we have our whole political life together. I mean, we've been arguing about everything from Amtrak to Afghanistan for, you know, as long as we've been together,” he continued. “I believe when this is over, win or lose, John and I are likely to be around in one form or another, in one job or another, and I hope, my hope is we can work together.”
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