McCain To Stop Fight for Michigan

One senior Republican close to the campaign called Michigan "an economic basket case" and said angst about the economy in the state has been the chief cause of the dropping poll numbers.

But McCain advisers fought back against the perception that the decision in Michigan reflects a broader problem for the campaign.

The Republican National Committee announced its best fundraising month ever, a $66 million September haul that officials said will help McCain compete with his rival's well-funded operation.

In a conference call with reporters, Strimple and McCain political director Mike DuHaime said McCain is successfully pressuring Obama in battleground states such as Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. DuHaime said that some of the resources from Michigan will be redirected to Maine, which allocates two of its four electoral votes by district. The campaign aims to win the single electoral vote in the northern Maine district (where senior McCain adviser Mark Salter owns a vacation home).

The campaign is "opening an aggressive front" in Maine, DuHaime said.

DuHaime and Strimple dismissed the rash of recent polling showing Obama leading in some reliably Republican states, such as Indiana and Virginia. Neither has been a battleground in years, but McCain officials include both in the list of states they intend to compete for feverishly.

McCain and the RNC announced this week that they are opening 12 additional regional headquarters across Virginia. The new offices will be in Sterling, Yorktown, Charlottesville, Woodbridge, Blacksburg, Norfolk, Abingdon, Richmond, Springfield, Gainesville, Danville and Mechanicsville.

McCain will now have two dozen offices in Virginia. Obama has 43 offices there. Obama and the Democratic Party also have about 200 paid staff members working in the state, according to Democratic officials and campaign finance reports.

McCain's advisers said that current polls reflect Obama's greater spending on television ads in the competitive states. Once McCain puts his message on the air, Strimple predicted, the poll numbers will "snap back aggressively in our favor."

Aides said their message will increasingly focus on what they assert is Obama's liberal record.

McCain made that point himself Thursday before the vice presidential debate. Campaigning in Denver, he previewed what are likely to be his main lines of attack against Obama at the next presidential face-off -- namely that the Democrat would raise taxes, grow the size of government and not work across the aisle.

McCain said he will try to draw out these differences with Obama on Tuesday in Nashville, saying the two have "a fundamental disagreement about who is best able to help our economy, whether it be through lower taxes and less government and more job opportunities. . . . Senator Obama has a clear record of wanting government to do the job that citizens do."

Shear reported from Washington. Staff writers Michael Abramowitz, traveling with McCain, and Tim Craig in Richmond contributed to this report.