Candidates don't have to be told it's the economy
COMPTON, Calif. -- Economic worries dominated the presidential campaign Thursday, with White House hopefuls on both coasts touting plans to ease the pain of a recession.
Two days before Nevada and South Carolina voters make choices in a chaotic White House race, a federal judge gave Barack Obama a possible lift by allowing casino shift workers, represented by a union backing the Illinois Democrat, to vote in nine locations in Las Vegas casino hotels.
Obama and rival Hillary Clinton journeyed to California, the biggest prize on a Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" featuring 22 nominating contests, to plug their plans to help struggling families and jump-start the economy.
With Iraq sliding off the front pages and the economy heading the list of voter concerns, candidates have rushed to emphasize approaches to fighting a recession some economists believe has already started and could be deep and painful.
Clinton discussed her $110 billion stimulus package and told voters at a predominantly black church outside Los Angeles she backed quick action to ease the burden on working and middle-class families.
"We're facing a recession in the economy," she said at the Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Compton. "We need to take action as soon as possible."
In San Francisco, Obama stressed his $75 billion plan to boost the economy and ease the tax burden on working families. He said "fundamental" long and short-term steps were needed.
"It's absolutely critical for us to do something short-term. We don't know whether we are already in a technical definition of a recession, but what I know from traveling all across the country is families have been struggling for a long time," he said.
Clinton and Obama are running neck-and-neck in polls in Nevada heading into the state's caucus on Saturday, just ahead of former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
Republicans are also on the ballot in Nevada but have focused more intensely on Saturday's contest in South Carolina, where John McCain leads polls over former Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.
Romney, who visited Nevada on Thursday, resurrected his campaign with a win earlier this week in Michigan, where he focused on promises to heal the state's ailing auto industry and manufacturing base.
McCain on Thursday offered a plan that would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, allow expensing of equipment and technology investments and establish a permanent research and development tax credit.
"The economy is in some difficulty now and we are going to have to adjust to that," he said in Aiken, South Carolina.
Ahead of Nevada's caucuses on Saturday, a federal judge rejected arguments from a teachers' group that the temporary casino caucus locations were unfair.
A large turnout of casino workers could boost Obama against Clinton because he is backed by the state's Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 dishwashers, cooks, cleaners and other hotel service workers.
The Clinton campaign said it had not been behind the effort to kill the locations but it was not happy with the result.
"The current system that inhibits some shift workers from being able to participate, while allowing others to do so, would seem to benefit other campaigns. More importantly it is unfair," the campaign said in an anonymous statement.
Obama's campaign applauded the decision and ridiculed Clinton's stance.
"While the Clinton camp clearly believed the voices of workers should be silenced in service of their perceived political interest, they enjoyed a 25-point lead two months ago and have much of the party establishment in their camp," said Obama spokesman Bill Burton.