JOHN McCain reached to Churchill for inspiration yesterday as he sought to re-launch his fading presidential campaign ahead of tonight's debate with Barack Obama.
Characterising himself as a man with his back to the wall, he aped Churchill's famous Battle of Britain speech to portray Mr Obama as too new and untried to be trusted as president.
He told voters at Blue Bell Community College in Pennsylvania: "P
erhaps never before in history have the American people been asked to risk so much based on so little."
It's not a moment too soon for fighting talk: like Churchill, Mr McCain is staring defeat in the face. In state after state, his plucky but underfunded campaign officials are being overwhelmed by Mr Obama's mighty force, able to deploy twice the cash and a million volunteers.
And like Churchill, Mr McCain has only a few weeks to turn the tide, with the election due on 4 November.
A window of success could open at tonight's final presidential debate at Hofstra University, New York.
It is the last face-to-face tussle between the two men and the last chance Mr McCain will get to confront his rival in an unscripted setting and score points off him.
Mr McCain coupled the character attack on his rival with an ambitious plan of cradle-to-grave tax cuts for pensioners, the unemployed, mortgage holders and shareholders.
Mr Obama unveiled his own rescue plan earlier in the week, and insisted yesterday that his package of trade measures were the answer to the fears of US workers. "It's a plan that begins with one word that's on everyone's mind, and it's easy to spell: J-O-B-S."
