JOHN McCAIN has dismissed polls showing him behind in key battleground states and trailing Barack Obama nationally by double digits, declaring that he can still win next week's presidential election.
"Obviously, I choose to trust my senses as well as the polls," Mr McCain told NBC television's Meet the Press. "I've been in a lot of presidential campaigns. I see the intensity out there, I see the passion. We're very competitive out there."
New polls put Mr Obama ahead by up to 13 points nationally and opening clear leads, not only in swing states like Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania but in traditional Republican strongholds such as Virginia and North Carolina.
The Democrat's massive financial advantage has allowed him to buy a 30-minute prime-time slot on all the major TV networks on Wednesday to make his closing argument. He is saturating the battleground states with advertising and investing millions of dollars in voter turnout operations with a special focus on African-Americans and young voters.
Mr McCain claimed, however, that he had narrowed the gap with Mr Obama during the past week and that he would close it further this week. "Those polls have consistently shown me much farther behind then we actually are," he said.
Mr Obama was back on the campaign trail yesterday after a visit to Hawaii to see his 86 year-old grandmother, who is gravely ill. The Democrat warned supporters in Colorado to expect harsh tactics from the Republican campaign during the final days of the race and he ridiculed Mr McCain's attempts to distance himself from President George Bush.
"John McCain attacking George Bush for his out-of-hand economic policy is like Dick Cheney attacking George Bush for his go-it-alone foreign policy," he said. "It's like Robin getting mad at Batman."
Mr Obama seized on Mr McCain's acknowledgment yesterday that, although he disagreed with the president on some issues, they shared the same Republican philosophy.
"I guess that was John McCain finally giving us a little straight talk, and owning up to the fact that he and George Bush actually have a whole lot in common," the Democrat said.
"Well, we know what the Bush-McCain philosophy looks like. It's a philosophy that says we should give more and more to folks at the top and hope that it trickles down. It's a philosophy that gives tax breaks to wealthy CEOs and to corporations that ship jobs overseas while hundreds of thousands of jobs are disappearing here at home.
"It's a philosophy that justifies spending $10 billion a month in Iraq while the Iraqi government sits on a huge surplus and our economy is in crisis."
Both candidates will campaign tomorrow in Pennsylvania, a state that backed John Kerry in 2004 but which Mr McCain believes he can win next week, despite polls showing him more than 10 points behind.
Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, who supports Mr Obama, yesterday warned Democrats against taking victory for granted. "I think complacency is our biggest foe in Pennsylvania," he said.