Despite polls, McCain says race will be tight

GOP nominee John McCain said Sunday that the presidential race will be close by Election Day despite a bevy of polls showing him significantly behind Democrat Barack Obama. 

“We’re doing fine,” Sen. McCain (Ariz.) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press”. “We have closed in the last week… You’ll be up very, very late on election night.”

{mosads}Just nine days before the election, McCain trails Obama in all national surveys, including some that have the Illinois senator leading by double digit margins. But the Republican presidential nominee said his own campaign’s surveys have him behind by just three or four percentage points. Pollster.com’s trend line of all national polls shows Obama leading 51.1 percent to 42.5 percent.

McCain argued that the race will tighten because people are learning more about Obama’s economic policies. McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), have portrayed Obama as a liberal who would increase spending and raise taxes as president. The Republican on Sunday said that the last president to follow such policies was Herbert Hoover, who oversaw the start of the Great Depression.

“We just figured it out with Joe the Plumber,” McCain said. “Americans just figured it out. [Obama] wants to spread the wealth around.”

While McCain stopped short of calling Obama’s policies “socialism,” he criticized the Democrat’s record.

Obama has “start[ed] out on the left-hand lane of American politics,” the GOP noninee said. “He has remained there.”

McCain on Sunday also pushed back against criticism of Palin, whose unfavorable rating is higher than her favorable rating in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.

“It sounds like I’m ‘defending her’,” McCain said. “But the fact is, she’s a dynamic person with executive experience.”

McCain dismissed criticism over the $150,000 spent by the Republican National Committee on her GOP convention wardrobe. He noted that some of that money will be donated to charity. “She lives a frugal life,” McCain said. “She and her family are not wealthy… She and her family were thrust into that. Some of that money will be given back.”

He also stated that he was “disappointed in Gen. [Colin] Powell” for endorsing Obama, but he added that he did not agree with Rush Limbaugh’s suggestion that the former Secretary of State’s decision was “totally about race.”