Obama, McCain seek leader's image in final debate

Obama, McCain seek leader's image in final debate

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama and John McCain will both pursue the image of a strong leader in troublesome economic times as they meet Wednesday night for their third and final presidential debate.

Their face-off comes as Obama widens his lead in typically Democratic states and campaigns with an air of optimism about his prospects, while McCain seeks a way to gain ground and finds himself defending traditionally Republican states with less than three weeks left in the race.

"We cannot spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: waiting for our luck to change. ... As president I intend to act, quickly and decisively," McCain said Tuesday in battleground Pennsylvania. There, he unveiled new economic proposals and previewed a possible debate strategy: argue that he would be different from Bush and better than Obama.

One day earlier in swing state Ohio, Obama outlined his own economic plan and showed off his own pitch. He suggested that McCain was more of the same and that putting a Democrat in charge was the only way to fix the economy's woes: "It will take a new direction. It will take new leadership in Washington. It will take a real change in the policies and politics of the last eight years."

The economic crisis has transformed the campaign over the past month. Obama has built leads nationally and in key states as the turmoil has returned the nation's focus to the unpopular Bush's policies. Now, the burden is on McCain to try to reverse his slide.

Wednesday's debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., is slated to focus entirely on the economy and domestic policy. The candidates will be seated at a table with moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS.

Both presidential contenders have used the previous debates to make and remake their main campaign points, frequently sidestepping direct questions such as how they would have to scale back their long lists of campaign promises in light of the economic crisis.

Advisers for each candidate say he will use the final debate to lay out his vision for the country and promote his economic policies while drawing differences with his opponent.

Character attacks — subtle or not — also could occur.

Obama has increasingly labeled McCain "erratic" and "lurching" during the economic crisis. The words suggest unsteadiness on the part of the 72-year-old four-term senator.

The Democrat's campaign released a pre-debate memo Tuesday that argued McCain was "ill-equipped" to lead during this crisis, saying his response "has careened, sometimes changing course within the span of a single day."

McCain has accused Obama of lying about his association with 1960s radical William Ayers, a founder of the violent anti-war group Weather Underground. Obama was 8 years old when the Weather Underground claimed responsibility for a series of bombings. Now a professor in Chicago, Ayers hosted a meet-the-candidate session at his home for Obama as he prepared to run for the state Senate. Later, the two worked with the same charity and social-service organizations in Chicago.

McCain has softened that attack on the campaign trail in recent days, though not in his TV and radio ads.

His campaign assailed Obama's on Tuesday for its "failure to explain how it is that Barack Obama carried on a decade-long friendship with a man who sought to topple the U.S. government through violence."

McCain has solidified and energized his base of Republican voters, but he has problems with his support among swing-voting independents. A recent Associated Press-GfK Poll showed them divided about evenly between the two candidates. That's a problem for McCain because Democrats decisively outnumber Republicans this year.

Compounding McCain's woes, new Quinnipiac University polls released Tuesday showed Obama leading by double digits in two states that Democrat John Kerry won four years ago and that McCain is trying to put in his column this year — Wisconsin and Minnesota — as well as in Michigan, which McCain abandoned earlier this month.

Also, McCain running mate Sarah Palin is being dispatched to campaign in usually Republican states such as Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia to shore up GOP support. However, McCain campaigned Tuesday in Pennsylvania and was to return there Thursday as well, a signal of the campaign's sustained effort to try to pick off that Kerry-won state offering a whopping 21 electoral votes.

To win, 270 are required.

McCain's strategy relies on keeping Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Ohio in the GOP column along with 21 other Bush-won states that aren't seriously contested. That would give McCain 260 electoral votes. He would then have to win 10 more votes from a pool of contested states won by Bush (Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico) and Kerry (New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania).

Polls show Obama leading or tied in all of those.

IRS promises fix to stimulus check problem

ST. LOUIS - The Internal Revenue Service says overdue economic stimulus checks will soon be mailed to about a quarter of a million married couples who had been denied the money because a spouse's married name and Social Security number didn't match.

When a couple marries and a spouse — usually the woman — changes names, the couple is supposed to alert the Social Security Administration. But tens of thousands have failed to do so and were unaware of the consequences until this year, when they didn't cash in on the rebate package. The package, enacted in February, resulted in payments to taxpayers of mostly $600-$1,200.

In an interview with The Associated Press last month, an Internal Revenue Service spokesman affirmed that stimulus checks would be sent only to those whose names and Social Security numbers matched.

But on Oct. 8, without fanfare, the IRS updated the question-and-answer section on its Web site to say it will mail economic stimulus payments this month to an additional 260,000 married taxpayers whose names did not match Social Security numbers.

"During the processing of the 2007 returns for these taxpayers, the IRS was able to determine that the person listed on the return actually was the person associated with the SSN," the Web site reads.

Those people should be getting letters within days telling them how much they'll get. The checks should arrive by the end of the month, according to the IRS.

The IRS blamed itself for the problem, saying married taxpayers whose names and Social Security numbers didn't match "were inadvertently omitted from the initial economic stimulus payments."

"The IRS regrets the inconvenience for these affected taxpayers and will continue to work hard to deliver stimulus payments to qualifying taxpayers," the Web site reads.

An IRS spokesman declined interview requests, and would not say if the re-evaluation was prompted by inquiries from The Associated Press or other news organizations. It was also unclear if the recent economic downturn played a role in the decision as a means of giving a boost to more people.

Either way, the news was welcomed by Sam and Elaine Vilardo, both 51, of Sinking Spring, Pa. After the couple married in 2001, she failed to register her name change with the Social Security Administration. When they called the IRS several months ago, they were told they'd have to wait until next year for the stimulus money because of that oversight.

Not anymore.

"It's great news," Sam Vilardo said Monday. "We've already spent the money, so we might as well get the check."

Vilardo blamed procrastination for failing to get his wife's name change registered.

"After you get married you have all those paper changes," said Vilardo, a mechanical machine designer at a steel company. "You just drop the ball."

The problem with the checks affected mostly those who filed tax returns on paper rather than electronically, said Jackie Perlman, senior tax researcher for H&R Block's Tax Institute in Kansas City.

"If you e-file and have a name discrepancy you will get an immediate rejection," and thus be aware of the need to fix it, Perlman said.

The system works differently for paper returns, Perlman said. If the name and Social Security number don't match, the paper return is stamped "invalid," but is accepted. And the taxpayer isn't informed.

Perlman said the Social Security Administration and the IRS both stress through community outreach efforts the need to file name changes. Even with the checks on the way, she encouraged any married couple who has not filed for a name change to do so to avoid future headaches.

Affected couples may want to act sooner than later. A second stimulus package is being considered in Washington, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has not ruled out proposing another round of rebates.

___

On the Net: