Presidential candidates redirect their focus on domestic issues

Washington: Back from a nine-day overseas trip, Senator Barack Obama made a point of turning to domestic concerns, calling a meeting on Monday to solicit advice on reviving the economy and lifting wages.

Obama, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, met with a bipartisan group of economic experts and business leaders, who agreed that a second stimulus package is needed to spur consumer spending.

Top policy makers

The group included some of the top economic policy makers of recent Democratic and Republican administrations. Among them were Robert Rubin and Paul O'Neill, Treasury secretaries in the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett took part by phone.

While Obama presided over the 2 1/2-hour meeting at a Washington D.C. hotel, his likely Republican rival, Senator John McCain, made a stop at a California oil field, where he reiterated his support for expanded drilling.

McCain renewed his criticism of Obama as the "Dr No of America's energy future" - a reference to Obama's opposition to expanded drilling and to a temporary suspension of the federal gas tax.

The two candidates also grappled with personal health issues. McCain, standing in front of a bobbing oil derrick in Bakersfield, California, and wearing a cap that shaded his fair complexion, told reporters that a spot of skin had been removed from his cheek earlier in the day during a routine checkup with his dermatologist in Arizona.

The Obama campaign said the Democratic nominee-in-waiting saw a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical Centre on Sunday night for a sore hip.