Politics

WASHINGTON (CBS) ― Two days before Election Day, John McCain and Barack Obama are playing on each other's turf, with McCain dashing through Democratic states where he trails and Obama showing his strength in one that voted Republican in the last two presidential elections.

Polls show Obama leading nationally and in several key states that could decide the election, including Virginia, Colorado and Pennsylvania. The Obama campaign is seeking to expand the playing field even further, perhaps setting the stage for an electoral landslide. But McCain's advisers note that the Arizona senator has come from behind before.

A year ago, McCain's campaign appeared all but dead before came rebounded to win the New Hampshire primary en route to a Super Tuesday landslide that essentially won him the GOP nomination. On Sunday, McCain's advisers predicted another come-from-behind victory.

"John's a closer. He always has been," former Sen. Fred Thompson said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "He often is given up for dead — literally and politically. People have been wrong about him before."

"I think the election has yet to be decided," Thompson added.

In Wallingford, Pa., Sunday, McCain declared to a cheering crowd: "Two days. Two days to victory."

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said Pennsylvania will be the most important state to watch Tuesday. It is one of two states won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004 where McCain is still competing. The other is New Hampshire. McCain is visiting both Sunday, as well as Florida. Polls show Obama leading in New Hampshire while Florida is a tossup.

Obama was spending Sunday in Ohio, a traditional battleground that went for the Republican presidential candidate in 2004 and 2000. His events included an appearance in Cleveland with rocker Bruce Springsteen.

Obama chief strategist, David Axelrod said Sunday on CBS 'Face The Nation' that the Democrat has expanded the electoral map by aggressively campaigning in traditionally republican "red states."

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Sunday that the Democrat has expanded the electoral map by aggressively campaigning in traditional Republican states like Virginia, Colorado and Nevada.

"We did not want to wake up on the morning of Nov. 4 waiting for one state. We wanted a lot of different ways to win this election," Plouffe said on "Fox News Sunday."

"Here we find ourselves two days out from the election with a lot of different ways to get to 270 electoral votes," Plouffe said. "We do not have to pull an inside straight."

To be elected, candidates must win 50 percent plus one of the 538 electoral votes awarded to states based on population.

McCain saw the weekend as a final opportunity to persuade voters to prove the polls and pundits wrong and sweep him into office. He made a quick trip to New York City to appear on NBC's "Saturday Night Live," where he joked about his latest plan to win over voters.

"I thought I might try a strategy called the reverse maverick. That's where I'd do whatever anybody tells me," McCain said. If that failed, he quipped, "I'd go to the double maverick. I'd just go totally berserk and freak everybody out."

Both men appealed to supporters to turn out on Election Day, saying the stakes could scarcely be higher.

"If you give me your vote on Tuesday, we won't just win this election — together, we will change this country and change the world," Obama said Saturday in a nationwide Democratic radio address.

Vice President Dick Cheney endorsed McCain, saying Americans "cannot afford the high tax liberalism of Barack Obama and Joe Biden."

Obama, in Colorado, pounced, saying McCain had earned the endorsement by supporting the Bush administration's failed social and economic policies.

Early Sunday, Obama's campaign released a new, 30-second television ad with that message. An announcer says McCain earned Cheney's support by voting with the White House 90 percent of the time. "That's not the change we need," he says.

McCain's campaign responded by highlighting the issues on which McCain disagreed with the administration.

An Associated Press-Yahoo News poll of likely voters showed Obama ahead nationally, 51 percent to 43 percent, outside the margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points. McCain's campaign faults the public surveys, and says its internal polls show the race tightening.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)