Candidates Spar Over McCain Plan for Loans

On Thursday, the stock market lost nearly 700 points and dropped below 9,000 for the first time in five years. Neither McCain or Palin mentioned the stock market on the campaign trail, and their campaign did not release a comment on it.

For several weeks, McCain's campaign has become more aggressive in painting Obama as dangerous, using the word in advertisements and on the stump. The idea, aides said, is to raise fundamental questions about Obama's ability to lead the nation.

On foreign policy, they question his judgment for opposing the "surge" strategy in Iraq. On the economy, they accuse him of being a "co-conspirator" with those who caused the crisis.

At the town hall meeting, McCain charged that Obama "did not lift a finger" to stop the accumulation of bad debts by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac despite what McCain said were Obama's associations with top officials of the organizations.

More than that, McCain essentially calls Obama a liar, a man whose background is one of shifting positions, inflated claims and questionable behavior. His campaign has repeatedly attacked Obama in the past week for his relationship with William Ayers, who was part of a domestic terrorist group during the Vietnam War.

In Strongsville, Ohio, on Wednesday night, Palin criticized Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., as looking backward in an attempt to assign blame. When McCain took the microphone, he did just that.

He said Obama has neither told the truth about what he has done nor answered critics. Instead, McCain said, Obama has challenged his credibility. "Let me reply in the plainest terms I know," he said. "I don't need lessons about telling the truth to the American people. If I ever needed an improvement in that regard, I probably wouldn't seek the advice of a Chicago politician."

Obama has also continually couched the argument in terms of whether McCain can be counted on to be stable in a crisis. In recent days, Obama and his surrogates have emphasized words such as "lurching" and "erratic" to describe the Republican, while a campaign ad also accuses McCain of being "erratic."

"This is the kind of erratic behavior we've been seeing out of Senator McCain," Obama said in Dayton. "You remember the first day of this crisis, he came out and said the economy was fundamentally sound. Then two hours later, he said we were in a crisis.

"I don't think we can afford that kind of erratic and uncertain leadership in these uncertain times. We need steady leadership in the White House. We need a president we can trust in times of crisis. And that's why I'm running for president of the United States of America."

Staff writer Dan Balz in Dayton, Ohio, contributed to this report.