US Election: Candidates Take the Campaign Battle to Florida

Barack Obama and John McCain are to focus over the next 48 hours on Florida, the state that proved pivotal in the last two White House elections, as both teams stuck to their carefully-constructed campaign timetables in spite of the Wall Street havoc.

Obama highlighted the importance of the state when he appealed to supporters for a staggering $39m - about half of the total $84m available to McCain on the entire campaign nationwide - to spend on advertising and other events in Florida alone.

The Democratic candidate, who is scheduled to speak at rallies in Coral Gables tomorrow and Jacksonville on Saturday, is running neck-and-neck with McCain in the state he hopes to take from the Republicans.

President George Bush won Florida, the fourth most important state in the country in terms of electoral votes, by only 380,000 votes in 2004.

David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, in an email to supporters pleading for more cash, said 500,000 black voters and 900,000 young people - both groups overwhelmingly behind him - have been registered who had not voted in 2004.

The key could be the Hispanic vote, with signs that a sizeable proportion could swing behind Obama.

The other major demographic group in the state is the Jewish vote, which normally votes Democrat. Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, complained today that the Republican Jewish Coalition is targeting Jewish voters with "lie-filled polling" and ads "that are filled with innuendoes and half-truths".

McCain, though he is not scheduled to be in Florida this weekend, has made repeated visits to the state. The Republican party is planning to air an ad tomorrow aimed at Florida's Latino population. The Spanish ad highlights how McCain, who is more liberal on immigration reform than his party, fought for immigration reform in the Senate last year.

The ad says: "Obama did not stand up. Obama did not speak out. And when the time came for him to do the right thing, he did not."

McCain spent $1m in ads in Florida last week, compared with $1.3m by Obama.

McCain's campaign team is considering sending his running mate, Sarah Palin, to Florida this weekend as a counter to Obama.

In what McCain's team will regard as a boost, President George Bush canceled a planned trip to Florida today intended to raise funds for him, saying he needed to remain in Washington to consult with his economic advisers. McCain is desperately trying to distance himself from the unpopular president, especially over the economy.

As polls showed Obama benefiting more from the Wall Street meltdown than McCain, the Republican candidate went on the offensive, claiming that an Obama presidency would mean increased federal spending and increased taxes.

But economic advisers in both teams are having to revise their spending plans in the face of the almost $300bn in bail-outs spent by the Bush administration in response to the economic crisis.

That will present a massive problem for whichever of the two follows him into the White House on January 20 next year.