The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Washington

Electing Democrat Barack Obama to the presidency would be good for the image of the U.S., a State Department official said.

James Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, was careful to emphasize that he didn't support the presidential nominee of either party. He also said he thought "it would be a great thing for the United States to have a woman as vice president," a reference to Republican running mate Sarah Palin. Speaking at a news conference focused on the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism, Glassman - who is assigned to improve his country's image around the world - also spoke about the U.S. military-run detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "I don't think it's going to affect the image of the United States" if the prison is closed, he said. The facility has drawn international criticism.

Both U.S. presidential candidates, Obama and his Republican rival, John McCain, have pledged to close the camp at the U.S. naval base. It is holding 272 prisoners without charges.

Democrat Barack Obama geared up Wednesday to deliver a presidential-style address to the nation on the final stretch of his duel for the White House against John McCain.

Upping the pace to an intense new level six days before next Tuesday's election, Obama was to hold his first joint rally with former president Bill Clinton at a midnight event in Orlando, Florida. Obama's bulging campaign coffers and grass-roots organization is allowing the 47-year-old Illinois senator to push deep into Republican territory, forcing McCain to pour resources into what in the past were safe states.

In Virginia late Tuesday, Obama said history was in the air as he builds a double-digit poll lead in a state that last voted for a Democratic White House hopeful in 1964, but warned once again against complacency.

"Don't think for one minute that power will concede without a fight," he told supporters.

McCain, 72, was Wednesday also campaigning in Florida, a pivotal battleground that decided the 2000 election in favor of President George W. Bush after a recount fiasco that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

An estimated two million Floridians have voted early and queues have grown so lengthy that Governor Charlie Crist -- a moderate Republican who is reportedly critical of McCain's campaign -- has extended balloting hours.Florida had appeared a lock for McCain not many weeks ago, but a Los Angeles Times poll late Tuesday had Obama ahead by 50-43 percent. It also had Obama on 49 percent to McCain's 40 in Ohio, another major toss-up state. The McCain campaign has been putting a brave face on the grim polling data, insisting that the race is much tighter than the surveys reflect.

Talking to reporters aboard McCain 's campaign plane on Tuesday, political director Mike Duhaime said he believed the voting patterns mirrored previous years despite the wave of early ballots cast in favor of Obama.

"The big thing that I look at is whether the composite of the electorate is changing, and I have not seen evidence of that," he said, adding that he believed Florida and other battlegrounds were "within the margin of error."

A new poll from Quinnipiac University Wednesday showed Obama with a still sizeable, albeit slightly narrower lead in Ohio and Pennsylvania but with Florida now too close to call. Obama is now ahead in Florida by 47-45 percent compared with 49-44 percent on October 23, Quinnipiac said, leaving the outcome within the margin for error of the poll.

McCain is portraying Obama as an ultra-liberal politician plotting to raise taxes across the board. "Senator Obama is running to be redistributionist-in-chief, I'm running to be commander-in-chief," he said. But that message does not appear to be resonating with voters. A new ABC News-Washington Post poll said Obama was the first Democratic hopeful since Clinton to lead his Republican rival on taxes, by 10 points.

Overall, the Democrat led McCain by 52-45 percent in the poll.

Obama 's 30-minute, prime-time television pitch was being taken out at a cost estimated by media analysts at up to five million dollars on three of the four national networks: CBS, NBC and Fox.

Virtually guaranteeing a huge audience, the "infomercial" was to directly precede the start of the latest and potentially decisive game of baseball's World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Florida's Tampa Bay Rays.

Aides were tight-lipped about the contents but the broadcast was likely to emulate the slickly produced biographical video shown at the Democratic convention in late August as Obama offers his "closing argument" to voters.

Clinton meanwhile could help Obama seal the deal with the kinds of white, working-class voters who backed the former president's wife Hillary in the Democratic nominating slugfest earlier in the year