CLEVELAND - Republican John McCain, casting next week's presidential election along partisan and ideological lines, yesterday portrayed Democrat Barack Obama as an old-fashioned liberal who would govern as a dangerous extension of his party's congressional leadership.

"Now this election comes down to how you want your hard-earned money spent," McCain told an audience in a Cleveland hotel ballroom after a meeting with political and business figures he considers his economic advisers, including former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.

"Do you want to keep it and invest it in your future, or have it taken by the most liberal person to ever run for the presidency and the Democratic leaders - the most liberal, who have been running Congress for the past two years, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid?" McCain went on, to boos. "You know, my friends, this is a dangerous threesome."

As he shapes his concluding argument to voters with just a week until Election Day, McCain's campaign has worked furiously to exploit distrust of incumbent Washington - South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has been exhorting supporters to "take your country back." And McCain has continued to distance himself from the Republican administration, while Obama has sought to blur any distinction, referring Sunday to a "Bush-McCain philosophy."

"We both disagree with President Bush on economic policy," McCain said. "The difference is that he thinks taxes have been too low, and I think that spending has been too high."

The remarks inaugurated a final phase in the campaign in which advisers said McCain - implicitly acknowledging that Democrats are likely to strengthen their hold on both chambers of Congress - would offer himself up as a bulwark against the hazards of single-party dominance of the legislative and executive branches.

"We're going to take a beating in the House and Senate. We're big boys and girls and frankly we deserve it," said Michael Steele, the chairman of GOPAC, a conservative group, and one of those who appeared with McCain yesterday.

"The last two or three years, the American people have gotten into a comfort zone of having divided government," he said. "It's part and parcel of this campaign: Tell voters what the consequences are."

Delivered with little advance warning to the media as Obama prepared to present his own "closing argument" at his own event 60 miles away, McCain's address offered no new policy details or prescriptions. Instead, McCain articulated in his most dire terms yet what has become the dominant theme of his campaign in the last two weeks: that Obama's plans to raise income taxes and fine companies that do not provide employee health insurance would be obstacles to small-business growth, and kill jobs just when new ones are needed most. "It's a difference of millions of jobs in America, and Americans are beginning to figure that out," he said. "With one week left in this campaign, the choice facing Americans is stark."Continued...