9-29-08, 11:30 am

Grand Rapids, Mich. – An enthusiastic crowd of several hundred people gathered at Central High School here Sat., Sept. 27, for a rally held by Hillary Clinton on behalf of Barack Obama.

In lines that stretched around the the block, a crowd of several hundred mostly white city residents came out to see the New York Senator. Clinton delivered a strong message on the economy and the extremism and failures of the Republican Party under Bush and McCain.

To the delight of the excited crowd, she paraphrased a line that earned her thunderous applause at the Democratic National Convention: 'No way, no how, no McCain, no Palin!'

If you care about the economy, Iraq, health care, education, the environment, she contended, you simply cannot vote for John McCain. 'We cannot afford four more years of the same failed policies,' she said. 'We love this country too much.'

'And no state in the country needs change more than the state of Michigan,' she added. 'I know what Michigan has been through with all of the incredible difficulties with the downturn in manufacturing and the loss of jobs, people moving out of state, families being separated, high unemployment, people losing their homes, not having their health care, retirees going back to work in their 70s and 80s because they don't have enough money to keep body and soul together.'

'There isn't any reason on this earth why anybody in Michigan should want to vote to validate the last eight years, which is why we need to vote for Barack Obama,' Clinton stated to thunderous applause.

Hillary Clinton's efforts for the Obama campaign are one of several reasons Barack Obama appears to be pulling ahead in the latest national polls. A handful of instant polls gave him the edge for his strong performance in the first presidential debates, during which he scored high marks on the economy and held his own on foreign policy and national security issues, especially Iraq, which were supposedly John McCain's top issues.

During the week before the debate as Wall Street and the Bush administration demanded a massive bailout of the financial markets, John McCain appeared to make a series of rash and poor decisions, injecting his campaign into Washington politics only to seem to have disrupted proceedings rather than help broker a deal.

In the presidential debate itself, during the 40 minutes spent on economic issues, McCain sounded shaky, appeared uncomfortable, and had few answers for Obama's challenge that McCain was linked to the economic policy of deregulation and a free hand for Washington lobbyists and Wall Street players that caused the financial meltdown.

Fears about the impact of the Wall Street bailout and anger over George W. Bush's refusal to link the bailout to economic stimulus for Main Street favored Obama. Obama's call for a bailout that addressed the needs of working families as well as Wall Street players resonated with voters enough to earn him a 24-point lead over McCain on economic issues, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released last week.

Obama has called for investments in job creation, helping homeowners renegotiate their mortgages in order to keep their homes, and an economic stimulus package that includes a tax break for 95 percent of working families. By contrast, McCain has proposed a new $300 billion tax break for Wall Street, including massive tax cuts for major oil companies.

Obama's strong economic message has boosted his support in key battleground states like Michigan. For example, a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner survey of voters in Macomb County, Michigan, a mainly white, working-class suburb that has previously leaned Republican and has been pegged as a tough place for Obama to win support, suggests his economic message is getting through. Macomb County, gave a one-point edge to Bush in 2004.

Both candidates have made numerous stops in the county, which both campaigns regard as one of the keys to winning Michigan. Prior to the the mid-September collapse of Wall Street, John McCain faired well in the county, with a seven-point advantage.

New data suggests that the race has tightened with Obama winning much stronger support from Democratic voters who leaned either toward McCain or toward Ralph Nader. According to the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner survey, released just this past week, Obama's support grew by about double digits among three key Democratic demographics in the county: non-college whites, moderate or conservative Democrats, and white union members.

But Obama's economic message, the poll showed, hasn't been the only factor contributing to his improved numbers. More and more voters in Macomb County also described Obama as 'on your side' and increasingly viewed Obama as solid on national security issues and the Iraq war.

The latest data from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner also puts Obama at a seven-point advantage in the whole state, improving his chances to claim the state's 17 electoral votes in November.

In addition to Obama's strong economic message and his solid performance during the national security presidential debate, Obama's campaign has out-performed McCain's in Michigan. Excellent grassroots work in the Grand Rapids area, for example, had McCain nervous enough to visit the supposed Republican stronghold in early September, speaking to a crowd of about one-third the size of Obama's last major personal event in the city. Elsewhere, voter registration efforts in Detroit has added at least 30,000 new voters to the rolls, with a goal to add about 500,000 statewide.

Obama's Michigan supporters are not taking the stronger poll numbers for granted. They have pledged to spend the remaining weeks registering voters, talking directly to undecided voters, educating voters on their rights, and getting out the vote on Nov. 4th.