[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn Anchor:] Also happening now, a show-stopping night for Barack Obama. With a half-hour campaign commercial, and Bill Clinton at his side, what can John McCain do to compete? The best political team on television is standing by. Also, Obama gaining new ground in our CNN electoral map, the surprising states that could help him win the keys to the White House. And talking to the Taliban, the Pentagon now thinks it is a good idea. What are McCain and Obama saying? We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer at the CNN ELECTION CENTER. You are in THE SITUATION ROOM. Tonight, Barack Obama is outdoing himself with a big money ad extravaganza and a campaign appearance with a Democrat who matches him in star power. That would be the former president of the United States, Bill Clinton. Only six days before America votes, Obama is clearly on the offensive and showing even more attitude toward his Republican rival. Let's go to our senior political correspondent, Candy Crowley.
[Candy Crowley, Cnn Senior Political Correspondent:] To North Carolina, another Republican state south of the Mason-Dixon where Obama hopes to break a decades-long hold on much of the region, he rides the economy to the finish line.
[Sen. Barack Obama , Presidential Candidate:] We don't need another president who fights for Washington lobbyists and Wall Street. We need a president who stands up for hardworking Americans on Main Street, and that is what I intend to be.
[Crowley:] In tandem, the campaign is up with a tough, stark new ad attacking McCain with one- to two-year-old quotes and making fun of his number two. He does mostly local interviews now, reads off a teleprompter, and stays far away from the traveling press, a mistake-free zone. His running mate is there, too. Free-wheeling, free-speaking Joe Biden is hooked up to a teleprompter, also free from reporter questions, and sticking with the program this longtime party man hitting the McCainPalin team.
[Sen. Joseph Biden , Vice Presidential Candidate:] No, no, no, no, they are good folk. They are good folk. But here is the part I love. Hey, maverick. I'm a maverick. You're a maverick. We are the maverick team, right? You know, Brett and Bart Maverick. They are the mavericks, right?
[Crowley:] Obama will spend most, if not all of the next days in the red states, but the thousands who show up in North Carolina and later in Florida are small potatoes compared to this evening's Barack blitzkrieg, a 30-minute political infomercial across multiple networks. A campaign source says real Americans taking their problems will take up some of the time, and then Barack Obama in a presidential-looking setting talking about his campaign experiences and his plans. He will also appear live from Florida during the time he is scheduled to be at a rally with Biden. Estimated cost for the half- hour Obama fest, anywhere from $3.5 to $5 million. Obama's campaign time may be finite. His money doesn't seem to be. The Obama campaign along with the press corps has now flown from Raleigh, North Carolina, here in Sunrise, Florida now, where we have just arrive. In fact, this is the place where he and Joe Biden will appear on this stage and do what we believe will be the final phase of that 30-minute telecast Wolf.
[Blitzer:] We will stand by for that. Candy Crowley reporting for us thank you, Candy. And this just coming into THE SITUATION ROOM the Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, now speaking out openly about her intentions in 2012, if if she and John McCain were to lose this contest next Tuesday. In an interview with ABC News, Sarah Palin is now saying, she would be interested in remaining a serious national political figure, going ahead to 2012. She was asked: "What happens in 2012 if you lose on Tuesday? Would you simply go back to Alaska?" Elizabeth Vargas of ABC News asked her. And Palin said this. And I will read it to you verbatim, according to an ABC News transcript. "Absolutely not," Sarah Palin says. "I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we have taken, that that would bring this whole and I'm not doing this for naught." That is a direct quote from Sarah Palin, clearly leaving open the possibility that she would be interested in leading the Republican Party in 2012 if she and John McCain were to lose this presidential contest right now. Let's go to Dana Bash. She is covering the McCain campaign for us. You are in Ohio, a key battleground state. Any reaction yet, Dana, to this rather blunt statement from Sarah Palin that she would in fact be interested in leading the Republican Party going forward after Tuesday if they lose?
[Dana Bash, Cnn Congressional Correspondent:] I just got off of the phone, Wolf, with a senior McCain adviser. And I read this person the quote. And I think it is fair to say that this person was speechless. There was a long pause, and I just heard a "huh" on the other end of the phone. This is certainly not a surprise to anybody who has watched Sarah Palin that she is interested in potentially a future national run. Certainly, she is being urged to by a lot of people inside the Republican Party if they do lose. But it is an if. And people inside the McCain campaign, they do not want any discussion that has an if in front of it six days before the election. They don't want any discussion at all, any kind of hypothetical talk about running for the next time around. So, certainly, this is not at least initially being received well inside of the McCain campaign. I can you tell that Wolf.
[Blitzer:] I am not surprised. I am not surprised at all. It is one of those, wow, she is openly talking about 2012 if they lose. That is not something to be something that you say. You are supposed to say, well, I am not looking ahead. I'm looking only ahead to Tuesday. Those are the talking points that she's supposed to be saying, but she is obviously blunt and she is looking ahead if something were to happen on Tuesday that she would not be happy with. Let's talk about Senator McCain right now. He is in Ohio. He's been speaking rather bluntly, unveiling his initiatives as he goes forward and going right after Barack. What is the latest, Dana?
[Bash:] Well, the latest is that, obviously, at this point in time, John McCain realizes he doesn't have a lot of time and he doesn't have a big infomercial, he doesn't have a big headliner like Bill Clinton tonight, so he is trying to counterprogram. John McCain knows he can't compete with Barack Obama's blockbuster bank account that bought 30 minutes of prime-time TV, but he can mock it.
[Sen. John Mccain , Presidential Candidate:] In his first address to the nation, an infomercial and by the way, I will never delay the start of the World Series for an infomercial.
[Bash:] And McCain's advisers admit he can't match the enormous Florida crowds Obama will draw. So he didn't try. Instead, small targeted events, a modest Miami rally with a message for the critical Cuban community.
[Mccain:] I will sit down and talk with one of the Castro brothers. I will sit down with them right after they empty the political prison.
[Bash:] A national security meeting in veteran-rich Tampa with a warning.
[Mccain:] When you cast your vote, my fellow citizens, let there be no confusion about the threats we face and the costs of failing to meet them.
[Bash:] But McCain's big push for attention was suddenly bringing up a six-month-old article describing a 2003 dinner Obama attended with friend and Palestinian scholar Rashid Khalidi. McCain says 1960s radical William Ayers was there, too. The L. A. Times has a tape of the dinner, but says releasing it would violate a source agreement. Calling Khalidi a PLO spokesman, McCain went on Miami radio to demand the tape be made public.
[Mccain:] I guarantee you if there was a tape of me and Sarah Palin and some Neo Nazi, or one of those, do you think that that tape wouldn't be made public?
[Bash:] And in Ohio, Palin joined in saying guests at that dinner were critical of Israel.
[Gov. Sarah Palin , Vice Presidential Candidate:] And among other things, Israel was described there as the perpetrator of terrorism instead of the victim. What we don't know is how Barack Obama responded to these slurs on a country that he now professes to support.
[Bash:] Now, in that "L.A. Times" article, it says that Barack Obama talked about the idea of finding common ground on this issue. And, Wolf, back in May, Obama was asked about by while speaking to Jewish voters in Florida and he said that he is friends with Khalidi, but he is not an adviser. And, also, today, an Obama spokesman said that McCain is simply trying to manufacture a controversy. I actually asked a McCain aide why they are bringing this up now, and the response was pretty blunt. It was, because Obama may be elected president in one week Wolf.
[Blitzer:] He's been a professor at the University of Chicago on Middle Eastern studies. He is now a professor at Columbia University. And Barack Obama has not hidden the fact that at one point they friends, although, as you point out, he insists that he was never an adviser to his presidential campaign. All right, Dana, thanks very much. We want to get back to this other story we are following, some blunt comments from Sarah Palin just a little while ago, telling ABC News that she would in fact be interested in running again in 2012 if she and John McCain were to lose this race on Tuesday, pretty extraordinary comments only six days before an election. Let's go to Mary Snow. She is in Ohio. She's working the Sarah Palin story for us. Earlier in the day, she delivered what her campaign described as a policy speech on energy issues,the third such policy speech, as opposed to stump speeches, that she has delivered. Mary, tell our viewers the thrust of what she was saying.
[Mary Snow, Cnn Correspondent:] Well, Wolf, this is really seen as an effort try to shift away from some of the recent controversies, focus on something that is in her comfort zone. Yes, it may help her with some independents, say strategists, but they doubt it's going to make any major difference at this point.
[Snow:] Stumping in the must-win state for Republicans, Sarah Palin shifted the focus to her signature issue, energy independence. She called for a clean break from Bush administration and said relying on foreign oil poses a security risk.
[Gov. Sarah Palin , Vice Presidential Candidate:] Across the world, these pipelines, refineries, transit routes and terminals for the oil that we rely on. And al Qaeda terrorists, they know where those are.
[Snow:] Palin toured a solar panel facility in Toledo. She mentioned solar energy, but stressed the need for nuclear energy and more drilling. She didn't mention Alaska's National Wildlife, where she supports drilling and John McCain doesn't. Some politics observers say it is a little late for this kind of policy speech as candidates give closing arguments.
[David Gergen, Cnn Senior Political Analyst:] What it does do and where I think there is some wisdom to it is that she needed to bolster her intellectual credentials, the sense that she knows something about substance, because she has been so ridiculed on so many other fronts.
[Snow:] Fronts like the focus on Palin's wardrobe and apparent rifts within the McCain campaign about Palin's performance. In Ohio, where polls show McCain behind, political observers say Palin still plays well to Republican audiences, but her favorable ratings have fallen as she has gone on the attack.
[Paul Beck, Ohio State University:] So, I think that independents in particular don't want to hear these partisan themes. It really turns them off in a campaign.
[Snow:] And while Palin started her day on policy, the political attacks picked up soon after, as Joe the plumber joined her on the campaign trail.
[Palin:] Because of an encounter with Senator Obama, what Joe the plumber and the rest of us finally found out is that Obama says now he wants to spread the wealth.
[Snow:] Well, Wolf, Palin has been hammering home the theme that Obama equals socialism. While she is continuing to do that on the campaign trail, she will shift some of her focus to a national security roundtable tomorrow, some strategists saying this is something that should have been done weeks ago Wolf.
[Blitzer:] Mary Snow in the battleground state of Ohio for us Mary, working the story, thanks very much. Bill Clinton has just started speaking out in Western Pennsylvania. We're going to go there live and hear what he has to say. That is coming up. Stand by. He is just getting through the introductory remarks right now. John McCain is asked something that many people want answered. Is racism a factor in this race? You're going to hear what Senator McCain told our own Larry King in a one-on-one interview. And stunning political developments we're changing our estimate of who would win the election if it were held today. One side will certainly be encouraged. The other will be troubled. And in a season full of negative attacks, here's one you don't hear often. In North Carolina, a Senate rival links her opponent to quote "Godless Americans." Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.