Obama looks to the west
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama set his sights on the west today saying he would fight for states there that narrowly voted Republican in the last election.
Mr Obama, the Democratic front-runner, and Republican John McCain traded blows as they began criss-crossing three western states that are likely to be pivotal battlegrounds in the November general election: New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado.
The two candidates recently have largely ignored Hillary Clinton, Mr Obama's fading rival.
Mr Obama is just 49 delegates short of the 2,026 needed to win the Democratic nomination. Mrs Clinton is trailing and has almost no chance of getting the nomination.
Today, Mr Obama went to Nevada for campaign events in the Las Vegas area, where he was expected to focus on economic issues.
The state is the worst-hit in America's housing slump with one in every 146 households receiving a foreclosure-related notice, nearly four times the national rate.
Mr Obama was signalling, even before the Democratic primary campaign formally wraps up, that he will campaign hard for those western states that the Democrats narrowly lost in the race between George Bush and John Kerry in 2004.
"We're going to fight as hard as we can in these states. We want to send the message now that we're going to go after them and I expect to win them," he said.
Mr McCain, who represents Arizona in the Senate, said Mr Obama "has no experience, no knowledge or background" on the region's issues.
Together, the three states account for only 19 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House. Those votes could be vital in a close race however, particularly if Mr Obama's weakness among white, working-class voters carries over from the primary race with Mrs Clinton and cuts his chance of winning some other states where Democrats usually do well.
The Obama campaign hopes that anger at Mr Bush, combined with changing demographics as new voters move to the region, will nudge the states into the Democratic column.
Yesterday Mr McCain and Mr Obama highlighted their differences over the Iraq war. Polls indicate most Americans oppose the war. The conflict has been overshadowed by economic concerns on the campaign trail, but could be a defining issue in the presidential election.
Mr McCain, a Navy veteran and Vietnam prisoner of war, supports a continued military presence in Iraq though he recently said he envisions victory with most US troops coming home by January 2013 if he is elected.
Mr Obama says he will remove combat troops within 16 months of taking office.
In his speech to veterans, Mr McCain distanced himself from the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, acknowledging that Americans are unhappy with the war, but arguing that commanders need more time.
If the US were to pull out now, "our defeat would be catastrophic, not just for Iraq, but for us".
