By: Ben Smith

Obama acknowledged his rival’s attempts yesterday to calm an angry crowd at a morning rally in North Philadelphia, drawing loud boos from the mostly black audience, my colleague Ken Vogel reports.

"I want to acknowledge that Senator McCain tried to tone down the rhetoric yesterday, and I appreciated his reminder that we can disagree while still being respectful of each other. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – Senator McCain has served this country with honor, and he deserves our thanks for that," Obama said, before warning that the Republicans were unlikely to tone down their campaign.

"But when it comes to the economy, and what families here in Pennsylvania are going through, Senator McCain still doesn’t get it. Yesterday, Senator McCain’s campaign manager actually said that Senator McCain wasn’t talking about the market because there’s just not much a candidate for President can say – and they aren’t sure what he’d say each day even if he did talk about it. Last week, in the midst of the most serious economic crisis of our time, his campaign announced that they plan to t’urn the page’ on the discussion about our economy so they can spend the final weeks of this election attacking me instead. They said, and I quote, ‘if we keep talking about the economy, we’re going to lose.’ So the last few days, we’ve seen a barrage of nasty insinuations and attacks, and I’m sure we’ll see much more over the next 24 days," he said, according to his prepared remarks.

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