Big names hit the trail

With Election Day fast approaching, prominent surrogates are out drumming up support -- we review where they've been and where they're going.

Published October 31, 2008 10:10PM (EDT)

The presidential campaign is nearing its denouement and both campaigns have called all hands on deck. A-list political pinups from both parties have responded and are now smiling, waving and speechifying their way across the country. Here's a rundown of what's been happening in a swing state near you.

Mitt Romney held a rally Friday in Las Vegas, warming up the sin city crowd for Sarah Palin’s arrival on Monday. He’ll be leaving the marquees behind this weekend as he travels to Evansville, Ind., where he will hold a "Road to Victory Get-Out-the-Vote" rally.

Rudy Giuliani will be attending a rally Friday evening in the ominously named town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Friday morning, at a rally in Hanoverton, he gave Obama's tax proposals the New York treatment, describing them as “flimflam.”

Even Arnold Schwarzenegger is hitting the trail. The governator put his massive bulk behind John McCain during a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. McCain is apparently willing to forgive Schwarzenegger for calling his plan to shore up America’s energy future with domestic oil "blowing smoke."

Newly christened celebrities will also be getting in on the action. Despite a glitch Thursday morning when McCain attempted to introduce an absent "Joe the Plumber" to a crowd in Defiance, Ohio, Joe will be back on the trail this afternoon and wearing his Halloween costume (he’s going as an Everyman). "Tito the Builder," a sort of Joe spinoff, was working the talk shows earlier today.

On the Democratic side of the aisle, Bill Clinton has been campaigning for Obama and talking about the life of the automotive industry in Campbell, Ohio.

Hillary Clinton, Obama's former nemesis, made a funny during one of her own appearances, this one on Friday in Kirtland, Ohio. "I was thinking about dressing up. And I really wanted to be scary," she told a cheering crowd. "I thought I would dress up like George W. Bush. Then I realized: John McCain took that costume."

Meanwhile, Al Gore was campaigning in Florida's West Palm Beach, where he told a crowd that "the people of the United States are coming back." Always the ray of sunshine, he also stressed the dangers of global warming.

Bill Richardson and John Kerry are also taking to the podium. Richardson told a crowd at a high school in Charlottesville, Va., that he’d "been sent to campaign in various cities in Virginia to see if we can help not just narrow the gap, but possibly win by a narrow margin, which would be unheard of." Kerry will be reporting for duty tomorrow, when he attends several rallies in New Hampshire.

Finally, a public service announcement: If you are trick-or-treating in a swing state, please be careful. You don’t want to get hit by a motorcade.


By Andrew Burmon

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