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Both Campaigns Stress Theme Of Steady Leadership

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The Associated Press

Published: October 22, 2008

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Republican Sen. John McCain told voters in this key electoral state Tuesday he was personally tested by the same kind of crisis that Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden warned Sen. Barack Obama will almost certainly face if elected president.

McCain recalled being ready to launch a bombing run during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which Biden said over the weekend tested a new President John F. Kennedy and was the template for the kind of "generated crisis" the 47-year-old Obama would face within six months of taking office.

"I was on board the USS Enterprise," McCain, a former naval aviator, said in the capital city of Harrisburg. "I sat in the cockpit, on the flight deck of the USS Enterprise, off of Cuba. I had a target. My friends, you know how close we came to a nuclear war."

As the crowd of several thousand began to swell with cheers and applause, he added with dramatic effect: "America will not have a president who needs to be tested. I've been tested, my friends."

At a fundraiser Sunday night in Seattle, Biden predicted that if Obama is elected, "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy," who authorized the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba three months after his inauguration in 1961, then faced the Cuban missile crisis the following year.

"Watch, we're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy," Biden continued, according to press accounts. "As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it's going to happen. ... And he's going to need help."

In similar remarks at another event the same night, Biden quickly added that those who test Obama will quickly find out he has "a spine of steel."

Campaigning in Lake Worth, Obama said that McCain is offering "willful ignorance, wishful thinking, outdated ideology" for an economy in crisis.

"While President Bush and Sen. McCain were ready to move heaven and earth to address the crisis on Wall Street, the president has failed so far to address the crisis on Main Street, and Sen. McCain has failed to fully acknowledge it," Obama said at a jobs summit his campaign staged in Florida.

Obama flew in the Democratic governors of several other states, besides Florida, that went Republican four years ago and for which the Democratic presidential nominee is making a serious play this time around. During the round-table discussion, Obama hammered home the message that he has the best economic plan, and all the participants agreed.

Along the long table talking economic policy for 95 minutes were the governors of Michigan, Ohio, New Mexico and Colorado, as well as Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

McCAIN COMING TO SARASOTA

Sen. John McCain comes to Sarasota on Thursday. The event will be at Robarts Sports Arena, 3000 Ringling Blvd. Doors open at 3 p.m. Tickets are available online at www.johnmccain.com/Calendar/.

They may also be picked up beginning at 10 a.m. today at these McCain Victory Offices: 2171 Tamiami Trail, Port Charlotte; 2614 Manatee Ave. W., Suite A, Bradenton; 6360 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota; 250 S. Tamiami Trail, Venice.

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