McCain predicts close Ohio race

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

A fresh-faced Barack Obama buried Republican John McCain in anti-incumbent sentiment four years ago. Now the 2008 presidential nominee says it’s the president’s turn to feel the heat.

In a telephone interview Tuesday during a campaign swing through Ohio, McCain recalled that “with some legitimacy, Barack Obama hung the Bush record around my neck.”

The Arizona senator said turnabout is fair play.

“Now this is the president, incumbent who said if the deficit wasn’t cut in half he shouldn’t run again. This is the president that said that if we pass the stimulus package that unemployment would be less than 6 percent,” he said. “This is the president who we just found out has not shown leadership in the Middle East to the degree where the attack on our U.S. consulate in Libya has turned into a major scandal.”

Obama and his administration have struggled to explain the circumstances that led to an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said it was her responsibility, not the White House’s, to keep the consulate safe.

McCain said his successor as Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is justified in highlighting the Obama administration’s failings for voters. He named the situation in Libya and a still- struggling U.S. economy as prime targets.

Though the national unemployment rate has fallen to 7.8 percent since the last presidential debate, its first dip below 8 percent in 43 months, McCain said jobs still resonate as an issue with voters in the political battleground of Ohio.

McCain stopped short of predicting a Romney win — in Ohio, or nationally — but noted that polls are tightening.