Sen. John McCain alternated Monday between economic populist and gloveless presidential candidate pounding away at his opponent in the last month of a tough contest.

 

In a 25-minute speech at the University of New Mexico, McCain, who trails Democrat Sen. Barack Obama among New Mexico voters in recent polls, repeatedly played to the dominant issue in the presidential campaign — the economy.

 

The Arizona senator promised if he were elected to create tax relief for the middle class, to control rising costs of food and gas, to help students struggling to pay for college and to make health care affordable.

 

But the crowd came alive when McCain took aim at his rival, Obama, whom the Republican criticized for being an “eager participant” in pork barrel spending, for having little experience and for shifting his position on issues.

 

McCain’s promises to ride to the aid of struggling Americans came on a day the stock market plunged more than 350 points and economic fears were spreading to Europe and elsewhere because of a financial crisis that has seized Wall Street and the nation’s banking system despite the passage last week of a more than $800 billion rescue bill by Congress.

 

McCain used the economic crisis as a backdrop to try to differentiate himself from Obama, touting his own experience against Obama’s meteoric rise as a national figure since 2004.

 

“I just didn’t show up out of nowhere,” McCain chuckled.

 

At one point McCain slipped into a call-and-response chant with the crowd.

 

“Who’s ready to lead?” he asked.

 

“You are,” the crowd shouted.

 

“Who will put our country first?” he asked.

 

“You will,” the crowd answered back.

 

But it was when McCain turned to criticizing Obama that the crowd of several hundred people erupted.

 

The enthusiasm seemed to begin to swell when McCain promised to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term and then began attacking Obama for shifting position on an assortment of issues.

 

At that, audience members began yelling “Fight, fight,” “He’s a pansy” and “Socialist.”

 

Warming to his speech, McCain questioned how much Americans know about the Democratic presidential nominee and what he actually will do.

 

“Even at this late hour, there are essential things we do not know about Sen. Obama or the record he brings,” McCain said to the roaring crowd. “We’ve all heard what he has said. It’s less clear what he will do.”

 

Then McCain quipped: “For a person who’s authored two memoirs he’s not much of an open book.”

 

The crowd cheered.

 

McCain’s tone reflects an increasingly negative presidential contest in the last four weeks of a long campaign. His campaign in recent days has tried to tar Obama by pointing to the fact that the Democrat has ties to a 1960s radical leader responsible for bombings and who is now a college professor in Chicago. Obama has said he knows William Ayers only peripherally. The New York Times and The Washington Post have debunked the connection in recent days.

 

Obama’s campaign on Monday answered back with the name Charles Keating — the central figure in a 1980s savings and loan scandal that tainted McCain’s reputation.

 

At UNM on Monday criticized Obama for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from executives and employees associated with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two quasi-public financial giants taken over by federal government last month.

 

He also called Obama an “eager participant” in the pork barrel spending of Washington and questioned Obama’s intentions to cut most Americans’ taxes.

 

“Who is the real Obama — the candidate who promises middle class tax cuts or the politician that voted to raise middle class taxes,” McCain said to enthusiastic applause.

 

While McCain critiqued Obama to the cacophony of cheering Republicans inside, just outside Democrats used the occasion to not only protest with signs saying McCain is “fundamentally wrong” but also to register voters. To help draw in potential voters, the band Made in Bangladesh sang outside the Student Union Building.

Singer, and International Politics major at UNM, Sean P. Ward said band members are Obama supporters. “Me and the drummer Joey Santiago have been canvassing around for the Obama campaign, so they just kind of asked us if we’d like to do this at the school, and we said ‘that would be great.’”