Candidates sprint to the finish line

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By Christina Bellantoni and Joseph Curl and David R. Sands

UPDATE 2:

With the hours draining away, rivals Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. John McCain of Arizona were taking the long way home in a final lap of frenzied campaigning of a nearly two-year presidential quest.

With polls suggesting Mr. McCain faces a steep uphill path to an upset victory, the Republican began the day in Florida, followed by lightning stops in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada before returning to Prescott, Arizona to cast his ballot.

Mr. Obama, aiming to pad his lead by campaigning in states won by President Bush in 2004, also started the day in Florida and traveled on to North Carolina and Northern Virginia before flying home to Chicago. He kept to his schedule even after learning early in the day that his ailing grandmother Madelyn Dunham -- whom he suspended his campaign to visit in Hawaii late last month -- had passed away after a long battle with cancer.

The 72-year-old Mr. McCain, who supporters say has been energized in the race's closing days, even plans to break with precedent by doing some post-vote politicking in Colorado and New Mexico Tuesday after casting his ballot.

Sensing one last opportunity, the Republican hammered away Monday at the revelation of an audio recording of an interview Mr. Obama gave in January, in which, Republicans said, the Democrat conceded his environmental program would drive businesses relying on coal power out of business.

Listen to what Mr. Obama says on his plans for the coal states.

"How out of touch is that?" Mr. McCain told a rally in Blountville, Tenn., just over the line from Virginia's coal-producing southwestern region. "I'm not going to let our coal industry go bankrupt."

The Obama campaign insisted that the coal comment was taken out of context. Asked about his "cap-and-trade" program to limit carbon emissions by U.S. producers, Mr. Obama appeared to say the cost of obtaining pollution permits would be too high for new coal-fired factories and plants.

"So if somebody want to build a coal-powered plant, they can," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted."