Candidates Head Into Debate Week on the Attack

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR

The presidential campaigns and their allies began the week with aggressive attacks on the candidates' records ahead of the first presidential debate on Wednesday.

The Republican National Committee unveiled a new Web site called failedpromise.com, which it billed as a “comprehensive guide to candidate Obama's debate promises.”

Among the assertions: that President Obama failed to keep the promises he made during the 2008 debates on spending, changing Washington, college costs, energy, foreign policy, health care, housing and taxes.

“These were not vague promises,” the Web site says of Mr. Obama. “He outlined a number of actions and policy positions he would take, and he vowed specific, tangible results. Despite his lofty rhetoric, the president has not met the very standards he set for himself. And America's still waiting for hope and change.”

Mr. Obama's campaign announced that Massachusetts l awmakers and former officials from the state will travel to key battleground states ahead of the debate to attack Mitt Romney's record as governor of the state.

“They are in a unique position to tell voters across the country about Romney's record of failed leadership and failed policies in Massachusetts, which included slashing funding for education and job training while raising taxes and fees on middle class families and small businesses,” said Adam Fetcher, the deputy press secretary for Mr. Obama's campaign.

The campaign said the officials will travel to Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin ahead of the presidential debate.

Mr. Obama's allies in labor are adding to the effort by sending out new fliers to their supporters in Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio that slam Mr. Romney's comments about the “47 percent” of people who are dependent on government.

One such flier from workersvoice.org, a group affiliated with the AFL-CIO, says: “Mitt Romney's true feelings about working families have become much more clear in recent days. Can America afford a president who would say things like this?”

The flier goes on to list quotes from Mr. Romney that the labor group says show that he is “just not one of us.”

The efforts by both sides are designed in part to fill the vacuum created by the candidates' debate preparations ahead of the face-off in Denver on Wednesday. Mr. Obama is in Henderson, Nev., preparing with his debate team. Mr. Romney's only event on Monday is a nighttime rally in Denver.

Both sides are hoping to lay the groundwork for an aggressive debate as national polls show a tight race. Polls in key swing states continue to show Mr. Obama with a significant lead.

The campaigns also start the week after an intense push to raise money ahead of Sunday night's deadline for September donations.

In a late-night e-mail on Sunday to his supporters, Mr. Obama made a final appeal for contributions, saying that by Monday “we'll know if we have the resources to finish this the right way.”

Mr. Romney made a similar plea for donations, saying in an e-mail that “we have just 37 days left until November 6. Every single day has to count.”