McCain,Obama start new vote countdown

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WASHINGTON, June (AFP): Barack Obama and John McCain Monday started the first full week of their head-to-head battle for the November presidential election, both intent on redrafting the US political landscape. After Hillary Clinton's exit from the primary race and fulsome endorsement of Obama Saturday, supporters of the Democrat and his Republican rival hammered two of the defining themes for the presidential election: the economy and Iraq.

"The fact is that John McCain voted 95 percent of the time with (President) George Bush last year, and 90 percent of the time with George Bush over the entire presidency," said John Kerry, the Democrats' defeated nominee in 2004.

McCain backers cast Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal whose first instinct was to thrust big government into every corner of US society. His inspirational oratory had no substantive underpinnings, they said. "When it comes to Senator Obama, it's all talk," South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said.