After debating Sen. John McCain, Sen. Barack Obama says there’s still plenty of campaigning to be done.

“For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky and think this is all set, I just [have] two words for you: New Hampshire,” the Democratic presidential nominee said during a fundraiser breakfast in New York. “You know I’ve been in these positions before where we were favored and the press starts getting carried away and we end up getting spanked. And so that’s another good lesson that Hillary Clinton taught me.”

About 10 hours after debating Sen. John McCain, Obama urged top campaign contributors at the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan to not be overconfident, despite leading in a number of national polls.

A CNN Poll of Polls calculated Wednesday showed him leading 51 percent to 42 percent.

“We’ve got 19 days,” Obama said. “We’re going to have to work absolutely as hard as we’ve ever worked in our lives in order to just to get to the start of what is going to be a very difficult and very challenging but ultimately a very fulfilling four years where we can get this country back on track.” 

Hours later, Obama spoke to a crowd in Londonberry, New Hampshire, lashing out at McCain’s debate tactics.

“Well, New Hampshire, last night we had a debate. I think you saw a bit of the McCain attack strategy in action,” he said. “But here’s what Sen. McCain doesn’t seem to understand: With the economy in turmoil and the American dream at risk, the American people don’t want to hear politicians attack each other — you want to hear about how we’re going to attack the challenges facing middle-class families each and every day.”

Obama urged McCain to “debate our genuine differences on the issues that matter” rather than making the Arizona senator’s campaign “all about me.”

“The truth is, this campaign is about you. It’s about your jobs. It’s about your health care. It’s about your retirement. It’s about your children’s future,” he added. 

McCain, speaking at an event in Downington, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, touched on his debate performance.

“We had a good debate last night. It was a lot of fun. … I thought I did pretty well,” he said to loud cheers.

McCain reiterated his position for taking America forward as economists say a recession is all but inevitable.

“We can’t spend the next four years waiting for our luck to change … I’ll take us in a new direction,” he said. “Our troubles are getting worse, our enemies watch and we have to fight, and that’s what I’ll do for you … I’m not afraid of the fight, I’m ready for it.”

McCain also urged voters there to help him win Pennsylvania — a state where a CNN Poll of Polls shows Obama leading his counterpart 50 percent to 40 percent.

“I need your vote. We will carry Pennsylvania. … We need your help. … It’s a close race, my friends,” he said.

McCain also responded to Obama’s assertions that his crowds are unruly and use dangerous language to describe the Illinois senator.

“I cannot tell you about how proud I am of you,” he said. It was a line that he used in Wednesday night’s debate. 

Obama and McCain are scheduled to speak Thursday night at the Alfred E. Smith dinner, a political tradition that dates back to 1945. It honors the first Catholic ever nominated for president and was begun by Francis J. Spellman, the archbishop of New York’s Roman Catholic Archdiocese at the time.

The Republican presidential nominee will also appear on the “Late Show with David Letterman,” after canceling an earlier appearance, which left the host fuming.

Also Thursday, McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, sounded a note of triumph about Wednesday’s presidential debate while campaigning in Bangor, Maine.

“They [Obama and Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden] look to the past because they’d rather run against the current administration, it sounds like, and that strategy though, thankfully, it’s really starting to wear very very thin,” Palin said. “As John McCain reminded Barack Obama last night, if he wanted to run against George Bush, he had his chance four years ago. This year, the name on the ballot is John McCain — and America knows that John McCain is his own man, he is the maverick.”

Though Maine has trended Democratic for nearly two decades, the McCain campaign is making a push in the state’s rural 2nd Congressional District, which is allotted one electoral vote independent of how the state votes at large. Despite the McCain camp’s efforts, the Republican National Committee has stopped running advertisements in the state.

Palin later traveled to Elon, North Carolina. At an afternoon rally at Elon University, near Greensboro, Palin pressed the audience to stand firm against accusations of negative campaigning, and told them to pay “close attention” to Obama’s record.

“It’s not mean-spirited and it’s not negative campaigning when you call someone out on their record,” she said. “So don’t let anyone, don’t let them make you believe that you’re being negative or mean-spirited or unpatriotic or unfair when you are asking about somebody’s record, OK?”

After the rally, Palin continued on to a fundraiser at a home in Greensboro.

Biden is traveling to Los Angeles, California, taping appearances on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and the “Ellen Degeneres Show.”

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Sen. Barack Obama says Sen. John McCain has made Bill Ayers the “centerpiece” of his campaign.

Obama said that he is the candidate who can bring “fundamental change” to the country and continued to try to link McCain to President Bush.

In one of the more forceful moments of the debate, McCain turned to Obama and said, “I am not President Bush.”

“If you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago. I’m going to give a new direction to this economy and this country,” the Arizona senator said.

Going into the debate, Obama was leading McCain by 8 percentage points in CNN’s average of national polls.

McCain asked Obama to clarify his relationship with Bill Ayers, a former 1960s radical who belonged to the Weather Underground.

“Mr. Ayers is not involved in this campaign, he has never been involved in my campaign, and he will not advise me in the White House,” Obama said.

McCain’s campaign has charged that Obama’s association with Ayers should cause voters to question his judgment.

Ayers was a founding member of the radical Weather Underground, a group that was involved in bombings in the early 1970s, including attacks on the Pentagon and the Capitol.

Obama said Wednesday that the fact the McCain keeps bringing Ayers up “says more about your campaign than it says about me.”

McCain again said that Obama has not repudiated comments made last weekend by Rep. John Lewis.

Lewis on Saturday compared the feeling at recent GOP rallies to those of segregationist George Wallace.

“I think Congressman Lewis’ point was that we have to be careful about how we deal with our supporters,” Obama said.

“I do think that he inappropriately drew a comparison between what was happening there and what had happened during the civil rights movement, and we immediately put out a statement saying that we don’t think that comparison is appropriate,” he said.

Asked why would the country be better off if their running mate became president rather than their opponent’s running mate, Obama said Sen. Joe Biden is “one of the finest public servants that has served in this country.”

Obama said Biden has a “consistent pattern” of “fighting for the little guy.”

“That’s what he’s done when it comes to economic policies that will help working families get a leg up,” he said.

McCain praised his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, as a “role model to women and reformers all over America.”

“It’s time that we had that breath of fresh air coming into our nation’s capital and sweep out the old-boy network and cronyism that’s been so much a part of it,” McCain said the first-term governor of Alaska.

Obama offered measured praise for Palin, whose qualifications have been widely scorned by Democrats. “I think that obviously she’s a capable politician,” Obama said, adding that she had “excited the base in the Republican party.”

McCain and Obama also went back-and-forth over the negative rhetoric that has dominated the campaign trail in recent days.

McCain accused Obama of spending “more money on negative ads than any campaign in history.”

Obama responded that McCain’s campaign had been running exclusively negative ads, and that the public found McCain to be running a more negative campaign than Obama.

McCain said he has a record of crossing party lines to get things done and told Obama that his “argument for standing up to the leaders of your party isn’t very convincing.”

Obama promised that he would “go through the federal budget page by page, line by line, and cut programs that don’t work” as president, echoing a vow his rival has made repeatedly.

McCain in turn promised an “across the board spending freeze.” He said he would balance the federal budget in four years, and went on to name specific programs including subsidies for ethanol when moderator Bob Schieffer pressed both candidates to identify specific budget cuts they would make.

The candidates also butted heads over tax policy during the debate.

Both candidates made frequent mention of “Joe the plumber.”

Last weekend, while Obama was canvassing for support in Holland, Ohio, the Democratic nominee ran into a man since dubbed Joe the plumber.

He asked Obama if he believed in the American Dream — he said he was about to buy a company that makes more than $250,000 a year and was concerned that Obama would tax him more because of it.

Obama explained his tax plan in depth, saying it’s better to lower taxes for Americans who make less money, so that they could afford to buy from his business. McCain characterized Obama’s plan as trying to “spread the wealth around.”

“We’re going to take Joe’s money, give it to Sen. Obama, and let him spread the wealth around. I want Joe the plumber to spread the wealth around,” McCain said.

He added, “Why would you want to increase anybody’s taxes right now? Why would you want to do that to anyone, anyone in America, when we have such a tough time?”

Obama countered that both he and McCain want to cut taxes, but that his plan would cut taxes for “95 percent of American families,” more than McCain’s plan.

McCain insisted that the government needed to help keep people in their homes, “putting a floor” under falling home ownership in the face of the mortgage crisis.

Obama charged that McCain’s plan could end up being a giveaway to “the banks” rather than to homeowners.

The national general election poll of polls consists of six surveys: LATimes/Bloomberg (October 10-13), CBS/New York Times (October 10-13), American Research Group (October 11-13), Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby (October 11-13), Gallup (October 11-13) and Diageo/Hotline (October 11-13). It does not have a sampling error.

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Scientists suggest the Arctic is already at a climatic “tipping point”

Arctic sea ice has shrunk to the second smallest extent since satellite records began, US scientists have revealed.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) says that the ice-covered area has fallen below its 2005 level, which was the second lowest on record.

Melting has occurred earlier in the year than usual, meaning that the iced area could become even smaller than last September, the lowest recorded.

Researchers say the Arctic is now at a climatic “tipping point”.

“We could very well be in that quick slide downwards in terms of passing a tipping point,” said Mark Serreze, a senior scientist at the Colorado-based NSIDC.

“It’s tipping now. We’re seeing it happen now,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

Under covered

The area covered by ice on 26 August measured 5.26 million sq km (2.03 million sq miles), just below the 2005 low of 5.32 million sq km (2.05 million sq).

But the 2005 low came in late September; and with the 2008 graph pointing downwards, the NSIDC team believes last year’s record could still be broken even though air temperatures, both in the Arctic and globally, have been lower than last year.

Last September, the ice covered just 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles), the smallest extent seen since satellite imaging began 30 years ago. The 1980 figure was 7.8 million sq km (3 million sq miles).

The 2008 graph shows a steeper decline than at the same time last year

Most of the cover consists of relatively thin ice that formed within a single winter and melts more easily than ice that accumulated over many years.

Irrespective of whether the 2007 record falls in the next few weeks, the long-term trend is obvious, scientists said; the ice is declining more sharply than even a decade ago, and the Arctic region will progressively turn to open water in summers.

A few years ago, scientists were predicting ice-free Arctic summers by about 2080.

Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050; and some researchers now believe it could happen within five years.

That will bring economic opportunities, including the chance to drill for oil and gas. Burning that oil and gas would increase levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere still further.

The absence of summer ice would have impacts locally and globally.

The iconography of polar bears unable to find ice is by now familiar; but other species, including seals, would also face drastic changes to their habitat, as would many Arctic peoples.

Globally, the Arctic melt will reinforce warming because open water absorbs more of the Sun’s energy than ice does.