Arnie mocks 'skinny' Obama

2008-11-01 16:48

Newport News, Virginia - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ridiculed Barack Obama on Friday as he stumped for Republican John McCain on the home stretch of the historic US presidential election race.

Schwarzenegger gave McCain's campaign a high-voltage jolt of starpower at an evening rally in the battleground state of Ohio on another day of frenzied campaigning with Tuesday's election just four days away.

Republican Schwarzenegger stole the show at the final stop on McCain's two-day bus tour of Ohio, a state that the 72-year-old Arizona Senator must win if he is to claim the White House from Democratic front-runner Obama, who is seeking to become the first African-American US president.

After arriving with McCain at the Nationwide Arena Hockey Stadium on board the "Straight Talk Express", Schwarzenegger delighted a raucous crowd of several thousands with some biting barbs about Obama's policies and physique.

Schwarzenegger, who organises a bodybuilding competition in Columbus every year, said he wanted to invite Obama because "he needs to do something about those skinny legs. I'm going to make him do some squats."

"And then we're going to make him do some biceps curls to beef up those scrawny little arms," Schwarzenegger said, before his punchline: "But if he could only do something about putting some meat on his ideas."

'Closing the gap'

As he trekked through Ohio on Friday, a fired-up McCain repeatedly insisted he was closing the gap on his rival.

"The pundits have written us off like they have done before but we're closing my friends but we're going to win in Ohio," McCain said.

"We're a few points down but we're coming back, and we're coming back strong."

Earlier, McCain's campaign staff talked up his prospects while Obama vowed to avert a "potential meltdown" in the clogged financial system as he listed his top priorities if elected.

At campaign rallies in Iowa and Indiana, the Illinois senator said the election would dismantle Republican politics of divide and rule "once and for all" and chart a new course of national unity.

Addressing more than 40 000 supporters in Indiana after visiting his daughters in Chicago for Halloween, Obama said "Malia and Sasha, each year they've got trouble deciding what (costume characters) they want to be for Halloween."

"John McCain didn't have that problem. Just like every year, he's going as George W Bush," he said, once again linking his White House rival to the president's shattered economic legacy.

Obama leads by nearly every poll going into the final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday's election, but McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis insisted the Republican was positioning himself for a comeback.

'Greatest comeback'

"We are pretty jazzed up about what we are seeing in the movement of this election," Davis told reporters on a conference call.

"We are witnessing, I believe, probably one of the greatest comebacks that you've seen since John McCain won the primary."

The McCain camp argued that a sheaf of polls nationally and in battleground states misread likely levels of Republican turnout in the election, and that the race against Obama was much closer than it appeared.

Obama's campaign though said Democrats were piling up imposing early vote totals in battleground states, meaning that McCain must win big on election day to catch up.

"The die is being cast as we speak," Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe told reporters, saying his boss was running strong in swing states Florida, Colorado, New Mexico and others.

The campaign would also take out advertising spots over the final weekend in normally Republican states such as Georgia, North Dakota, and McCain's home state of Arizona.

Flaunting its massive campaign war chest, the Obama campaign had also spent three times more on television advertising than McCain recently, a new study found.

Obama spent a whopping $21m on TV ads between October 21 and 28, while John McCain's campaign spent close to $7.5m, the University of Wisconsin Advertising Project said.

The latest national poll by The New York Times and CBS News gave Obama a yawning lead of 11 points among likely voters - 52% to 41 for McCain.

It also suggested that McCain's running mate choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin - who would become the first woman elected to vice president - might be dragging on his campaign.

- AFP