Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain, reacts to the crowd during a rally at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, yesterday. - AP

WASHINGTON (AP):

IN AN outbreak of class warfare, Republican John McCain likened Democrat Barack Obama to European socialists who advocate redistributing wealth as he desperately tried to reverse his declining poll numbers.

With just over two weeks remaining to election day, the campaign heated up Saturday as Obama countered by accusing his rival of being "out of touch" with the struggles of middle-class Americans who need "a break".

Increasingly aggressive

The presidential candidates swapped sharply worded charges over tax cuts, each accusing the other of short-changing middle-income Americans at a time of economic hardship for millions.

McCain has become increasingly aggressive in debates, personal appearances and - in the last few days - automated phone calls as the polls showed him falling behind nationally as well as in several key battleground states.

Obama attacks his rival heartily, and his rhetoric is backed by a late-campaign television advertising blitz that McCain has been unable to match.

The candidates' itineraries underscored McCain's mounting problems holding on to states that traditionally have been safe for Republicans.

Obama spent the day in Missouri, a bellwether state that voted for President George W. Bush in 2004. Campaign aides, citing local police, estimated 100,000 people turned out to hear him at the Gateway Arch in St Louis on the banks of the Mississippi River.

State-by-state vote

Only once since 1904 has the Midwestern state failed to vote for the ultimate presidential election winner. The US election is not a national ballot; it is won or lost on a state-by-state basis, with the most populous states holding the most electoral votes.

McCain campaigned in North Carolina and Virginia, a pair of traditionally Republican states he is struggling to hold. Aides estimated his North Carolina crowd at 4,000 to 5,000, a number he matched later in the day during an outdoor appearance in Woodbridge, Virginia.

The senator took the stage there to the theme song of Rocky, a movie about an underdog and comeback fighter, who loses his big fight in the final scene of the film.

The last Democratic candidate to win North Carolina was Southerner Jimmy Carter in 1976 when the Republicans were reeling from President Richard Nixon's resignation following the Watergate scandal. Virginia has not voted for a Democratic nominee since President Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory in 1964.

McCain fired the first volley Saturday, accusing his rival of wanting to "convert the IRS (Internal Revenue Service) into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington".

"At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives," the Arizona senator said in his radio address. "They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candour from Senator Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give cheques to others is not a tax cut; it's just another government giveaway."