Obama comes out swinging

In a city hit hard by home foreclosures, slumping tourism and a dried-up construction sector, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on Wednesday hit his opponent hard on the economy, saying Republican John McCain lacks credibility when he says he will take things in a new direction.

Speaking in Las Vegas, Obama noted that McCain has been in Congress for 26 years and has as his top advisers several federal lobbyists, whose influence Obama partly blames for the policies of the Bush administration.

"Now he tells us that he's the one who will take on the old boys' network in Washington?" Obama said of McCain, who has adopted more populist rhetoric as Wall Street has cratered this week. "What's wrong with this picture? The old boys' network? In the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting."

On his 17th trip to Nevada, Obama drew his biggest crowd yet in the state, bringing more than 11,000 people to Cashman Field, the downtown stadium that is home to the Las Vegas 51s. Despite an afternoon rainstorm that cleared shortly before the candidate took the field, the stands were nearly filled.

The 5 p.m. speech clogged downtown traffic, and security for Obama's visit shut down parts of Interstate 15 at the peak of rush hour. Obama spoke with his back to the stands so that television cameras captured the packed crowd behind him, not the smaller group standing on the baseball field in front of him.

Although the campaign claimed an audience of 14,000, the person to whom the estimate was attributed, Cashman Facility Operations Director David Cooper, put the number at between 11,000 and 12,000.

Obama devoted nearly half of his 35-minute speech to blasting McCain's economic views and mocking what he depicted as a poll-driven election-eve conversion by "the new and improved change agent John McCain."

McCain, he noted, has cited as economic expertise his stint as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Given what's going on on Wall Street, Obama said, "all I can say to Senator McCain is, nice job."

He also ridiculed McCain's proposal of a commission to study the roots of the current crisis.

"That's Washington-speak for 'We'll get back to you later,'" he said.

"We don't need a commission to figure out what happened. We know what happened. Too many in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store. CEOs got greedy. Lobbyists got their way. Politicians sat on their hands until it was too late. We don't need a commission to tell us how we got into this mess. We need a president who will lead us out of this mess."

By the end of the week, Obama joked, McCain and his former economic adviser, Phil Gramm, "are going to be on a picket line somewhere with torches and pitchforks."

The point, he said, was not that the current troubles are McCain's fault, but that they have shown that the Republican philosophy of unfettered markets leads to ruin.

"It's the philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down," Obama said. "What we've seen in the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on this philosophy. It is a philosophy that has failed."

Obama noted that he has championed tougher market regulation for years, while McCain until recently adopted a laissez-faire line.

"I've got a track record. I'm not just a Johnny-come-lately," he said. "I've been talking about change for two years now. I didn't just read a poll and decide this is a change election."

In a state where Democrats hope to turn out Hispanic voters in record numbers this year, Obama mentioned several times that Latinos are hit especially hard by tough economic times and touted his support for immigration reform.

Barbara Viray, 33, of Las Vegas attended Obama's speech with her two daughters, ages 14 and 3. As a single mom without health insurance, she said she was especially glad to hear Obama say he would make health care more accessible.

Viray recently lost her job at a slot-machine company. She said she's never voted before and doesn't follow politics but decided a couple of weeks ago that she has to get involved in this election.

"Absolutely, it's time for change," she said. "It's important for my kids."

Martha Bush, 59, also said she's getting ready to vote for the first time. A recent transplant to Las Vegas (and no relation to the president), Bush and her husband, Charles, moved from Tennessee so that he could get a job as an electrical worker.

"This economy is really bad, and I think Obama can make a change," she said. "The middle class needs help. I've listened to McCain, and he didn't make no sense to me. It's like he's in space."

Meanwhile, a cluster of about two dozen Republican protesters greeted Obama's motorcade as it rolled in.

Brandishing a sign that read "Rock stars belong in Hollywood not Washington," Kris Del Campo, 19, said McCain's years in the Senate and his military service make him far more qualified to run the country.

"Obama -- we can't give him on-the-job training," said Del Campo, a student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. "We don't need a community organizer in the White House."

Michelle Chadwick, 52, said McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, embrace the traditional, conservative values that made America great. A wider gulf exists between McCain and Obama than has been seen in a presidential race in a long time, she said.

"National security is the most important issue," Chadwick said. "Which of the candidates has military experience?"

McCain's campaign issued an official statement saying Obama is wrong for the economy because he would raise taxes.

"When Barack Obama says that he's not going to raise taxes, he is not being honest with voters," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said. "Not only has Barack Obama proposed raising capital gains taxes, social security taxes and taxes on energy sources, he's voted in support of higher taxes for Americans making only $42,000 a year."

Obama supported a Democratic budget resolution in the Senate that would have increased by $15 the tax burden of single people making that amount, but it is not part of his current economic agenda.

Obama claims 95 percent of working families would get a tax cut under his plan.

Review-Journal writer Scott Wyland contributed to this report. Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2919.