>> Officials: Threat, powder sent to McCain office

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican John McCain's game plan for beating Democrat Barack Obama rests on one huge assumption: Despite an unpopular war, an uncertain economy and the GOP's beleaguered status, the country still leans more to the right than to the left.

''There are going to be stark choices between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican,'' McCain says at nearly every turn as he seeks to portray Obama as out of step with the nation. The more the GOP nominee-in-waiting can frame the debate along those lines, and capture a larger chunk of the electorate's center, the better his chance to eke out a victory in an extraordinarily challenging political environment.

Of course, a slew of other factors will come into play, including experience, character and outside events.

And, although Republicans shy away from publicly discussing it, race could have an enormous role. Public attitudes about issues like taxes and health care have been tested for years, but no one knows whether the nation will elect a black man, Obama, as president.

Age is another unknown. McCain will be 72 in August and would be the country's oldest elected president; Obama is more than two decades younger.

Seeking an early edge, McCain has spent the past few weeks laying out arguments against Obama, who is on the verge of clinching the Democratic nomination over Hillary Rodham Clinton. McCain has claimed that Obama lacks experience, raised questions about his judgment and suggested that the Democrat offers change that could imperil the country.

At the same time, the Vietnam prisoner of war and four-term senator has started trying to make the case that he alone has the qualifications to be a wartime commander in chief, in effect using his experience to counter concerns about his age.

Six months out, polling shows McCain competitive against Obama, and that heartens McCain's advisers, who recognize the difficult landscape for a Republican after President Bush's eight-year tenure.

In a sign of the troublesome times, the GOP has lost three special elections to fill vacant Republican seats this year.

The backdrop to those defeats: Bush's popularity is low, and a vast majority the public doesn't like the direction the country is heading. It's on the brink of a recession -- if not already in one -- and it's in the sixth year of a costly Iraq war that most people no longer support but that McCain does. Fundraising figures and primary turnout numbers also indicate that the GOP base isn't nearly as revved up as its counterpart.

Conversely, Democrats have a public hunger for change on their side. They also are on the cusp of nominating a fresh-faced candidate who has raised more than $200 million in more than a year, can pull in 35,000-strong crowds, and who long has opposed the Iraq war. The Democratic Party also has registered untold millions of new voters in key states.

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