Word: mccain
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...McCain is refusing to take the path of Dole. In fact, McCain's underdog role seems to have hardened the resolve of both McCain and the staff around him. Where Dole chose to make the final days of the campaign a celebration with friends, McCain remains focused on the prize, with a fierce intensity that continues to rouse his audiences. "I'm an American and I choose to fight," he calls out at every campaign stop, drawing cheers from the crowds, which tend to number no more than several thousand...
...McCain's staff continues to point to public polling data that shows any glimmer of hope. There are no winks or nods on the campaign bus suggesting the race has been lost. There has been no thaw in McCain's frosty relationship with his traveling press. "We are not just flying around the country for the hell of it," says Mark Salter, one of McCain's closest advisers. "This is a winnable race. We feel we've been gaining since Thursday and we can catch him by Tuesday...
...Salter pointed to a recent Mason-Dixon poll that suggested the race had tightened since mid-October in Florida, a crucial state for McCain, with Obama's lead narrowing to just two points. (Other recent polls have shown the Obama lead as big as 7 points in Florida.) McCain has also recently retaken the lead in a Real Clear Politics average of polls for Missouri, where the race is essentially tied. The race has also narrowed in public polling of Pennsylvania, which McCain is targeting with events on Saturday and Sunday. Obama led in the state by an average...
...Dole, by contrast, faced numbers much more dire than McCain in the final weeks of his race. A 1996 Gallup tracking poll found Dole with just 35% of the national popular vote on the eve of election, compared to 51% for Clinton and 8% for Ross Perot. On election day, Dole carried 19 states and 41% of the vote, compared to Clinton's 31 states and 49% share...
...Perhaps the most striking feature of McCain's late stage campaign is his ferocity on the stump. For much of the spring and summer, McCain favored town hall meetings, often struggling with teleprompters. His tone was more often conversational. Today, the teleprompter has become a regular part of his routine, and his performance borders on bombastic. The closing stump speech is a mixture of conservative ideology on taxes, questions about Obama's truthfulness, and jokes about Obama's gaffe-prone running-mate, who McCain refers to as "Joe the Biden" and "the gift that keeps on giving...