Obama surges to nine-point lead over McCain

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama turned his attention to the troubled US economy today after he surged to his largest ever lead over his Republican rival John McCain following his high-profile overseas tour.

Mr Obama will meet economic experts in Washington DC later in a bid to halt the downward spiral of the US economy, the number one issue among American voters as they decide which candidate they will vote for in November’s election.

The latest Gallup Tracking Poll showed Mr Obama leading Mr McCain by nine points – the largest margin for the Illinois senator since Gallup began tracking the election race in March.

Mr Obama’s week-long trip to the Middle East and Europe, which was highly unusual for a US presidential hopeful, saw the 46-year-old hailed as an “impressive figure” who now has “an album of enviable images with generals, rank-and-file troops and world leaders” as he sought to boost his foreign policy credentials.

But following criticism that he was spending too much time overseas when Americans were facing serious problems at home, Mr Obama said he intended to shift his focus quickly toward the economy and other domestic issues in the coming days.

A new economic stimulus package may be his first legislative request if he takes office as the 44th president in January, he said.

He has also called for additional tax rebates and other measures to help revive the economy – issues which will be discussed today.

Investor Warren Buffett, Google chairman Eric Schmidt, and former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker will be at the meeting, along with former Clinton administration officials.

It also emerged that Mr Obama, a lifelong basketball player, saw a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical Centre last night to deal with a sore hip.

As he left the hospital, Mr Obama told reporters: “I had small X-rays. Everything’s OK. I think I’m going to be good in about a week.”

Meanwhile, Mr McCain hosted a small gathering in Bakersfield, California, to press for lifting the quarter-century ban on drilling in US coastal waters as a means of reducing American dependence on imported oil.

Mr Obama opposes offshore drilling, but it was their stances over the Iraq war which overshadowed the candidates’ arguments.

During a town hall meeting in New Hampshire last week, Mr McCain, whose rival has called for the withdrawal of US troops within 16 months of taking office, said that “Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign”.

The 71-year-old Arizona senator told ABC yesterday: “Senator Obama doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand what’s at stake here (in Iraq).

“And he chose to take a political path that would have helped him get the nomination of his party.

“And if we’d done what Senator Obama wanted done it would have been chaos, genocide, increased Iranian influence, perhaps al Qaida establishing a base again.”

But fellow Republicans criticised Mr McCain’s comments.

Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska senator and long-time McCain friend who accompanied Mr Obama to Iraq, told CBS yesterday: “John’s better than that.

“I think John is treading on some very thin ground here when he impugns motives.”

Mr Hagel, a long-time critic of the Iraq war and Vietnam war veteran, warned: “It’s just not responsible to be saying things like that.”