Five days before the presidential debate, the popularity of Democrat Barack Obama has risen in the polls while his rival John McCain suffers the consequences of his clumsy response to the economic crisis affecting the country.
The Democratic presidential candidate took his campaign to North Carolina on Sunday after declaring a day earlier that McCain is afraid to be philosophically responsible, along with his party's near-collapse of the U.S. financial system.
McCain, a senator who has been in Congress 26 years, responded by saying that Obama has chosen the tactic of fear. The Republican, however, has the difficult task of justifying his long record in favor of the anti-corporate and financial regulation. It has been said that the lack of lax rules has caused the crisis on Wall Street.
Obama talked about this in a campaign at the University Bethune-Cookman in Florida.
"There is only one candidate who proclaims' an anti-regulator 'when precisely the lack of regulation is part of the problem," said Obama.
McCain now says that more controls are needed to prevent a repetition of the chaos in financial markets. The Republican candidate tries to recover from a series of setbacks this week, which began on Monday when he said that the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are strong.
National surveys show that the advantage of McCain in the race to the White House has declined since the start of the financial crisis. The latest Gallup poll showed Obama with a popularity of 50%. McCain has a 44% support.
