McCain denies being close to Bush

• November is key to major change if US voters elect first black president

ZANESVILLE, Ohio

Republican presidential nominee John McCain on Sunday fought to distance himself from unpopular President George W. Bush as Democrat Barack Obama attempted to attach them at the hip on a day of fierce campaigning.

“Do we share a common philosophy of the Republican Party? Of course. But I’ve stood up against my party, not just President Bush but others, and I’ve got the scars to prove it,” Mr McCain told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on a day he held events in both Iowa and Ohio.

Obama quickly seized on McCain’s comment in a speech in Denver, saying McCain was “finally giving us a little straight talk, and owning up to the fact that he and George Bush actually have a whole lot in common.”

Race is tightening

Mr McCain, in his “Meet the Press” interview and at his campaign events, shrugged off opinion polls showing him far behind Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the campaign, saying he senses the race is tightening.

Meanwhile, Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said on Sunday the $150,000 in clothes and accessories bought for her by the Republican National Committee don’t belong to her, equating the high-priced wardrobe with the stagecraft at campaign rallies.

Dogged for days by the brouhaha over outfits from upscale stores such as Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, Ms Palin argued that she and her family live frugally.

To emphasise her point Sunday night, she wore jeans at an event in Asheville, N.C.

“This whole thing with the wardrobe, I try to just ignore it because it’s so ridiculous,” Palin told a Florida crowd earlier in the day.

“Those clothes, they are not my property, just like the lighting and the staging and everything else the RNC purchased,” she said.

“I’m not taking them with me. I’m back to wearing my old clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska.”

On Sunday, a McCain spokesman said about a third of the clothes were returned because they were the wrong size or for other reasons, and the rest would be donated to charity.

Ms Palin talked about her accessories Sunday: earrings that were a gift from her husband’s Yup’ik Eskimo mother, and “a $35 wedding ring from Hawaii that I bought myself. Because with my ring, I always thought, it’s not what it’s made of, it’s what it represents.”

News of such expensive clothes offered a stark contrast to Palin’s image as an average “hockey mom.”