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Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton join forces in Florida - Los Angeles Times

As early presidential voting got underway and with two weeks until election day, Obama also pressed his economic plan and warned his supporters that tough tactics were coming, even as polls show him ahead but with a slightly narrowing lead. In recent days, Republicans have accused the Obama campaign of having a liberal agenda that focuses on redistributing wealth and have used automatic telephone calls in several states to link Obama to a former radical with whom the Illinois senator has had a limited relationship.

"Change never comes without a fight," Obama said. "In the final days of campaigns, the say-anything, do-anything politics too often takes over. We've seen it before. And we're seeing it again: ugly phone calls; misleading mail; misleading TV ads; careless, outrageous comments. All aimed at keeping us from working together, all aimed at stopping change.

"It's getting so bad that even Senator McCain's running mate denounced his tactics last night. You know you really have to work hard to violate Governor Palin's standards on negative campaigning," he said to about 8,000 people at the rally.

Republicans have opposed any tax increases, and McCain has called on extending the Bush income tax cuts. Obama's plan would increase taxes for those earning more than $250,000 a year, but everyone else would get a tax cut.

"It's true that I want to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the very wealthiest Americans and go back to the rate that they paid under Bill Clinton," Obama said today. "John McCain calls that socialism. What he forgets, conveniently, is that just a few years ago, he himself said those Bush tax cuts were irresponsible. He said he couldn't 'in good conscience' support a tax cuts where the benefits went to the wealthy at the expense of 'middle class Americans who most need tax relief.' That's his quote. Well, he was right then, and I am right now."