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Barack Obama sought to close the deal with American voters yesterday as he heralded the dawn of a new politics that will heal divisions, appeal to “our better angels” and restore a sense of “higher purpose”.

His speech in Canton, Ohio, was designed to frame the final days of an often bitterly fought presidential contest around the uplifting themes he had emphasised at the outset of his campaign. While he was at pains to tell supporters that they cannot afford to “let up for one day, one minute or one second”, Mr Obama told an exultant crowd: “In one week, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history.”

He declared: “If you will stand with me, and fight with me, and give me your vote, then I promise you this – we will not just win Ohio, we will not just win this general election, but together we will change this country and we will change the world.”

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Shortly after he finished speaking, federal authorities disclosed that they had broken up a plot by two white supremacists to shoot 88 black people and decapitate 14 others.

Paul Schlesselman, 18, and Daniel Cowart, 20, were arrested in Tennessee last Wednesday. Special agent Jim Cavanaugh said that their final act would have been an attempt on Mr Obama’s life. “They didn’t believe that they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying,” he said.

Mr Obama’s message will be driven home by a 30-minute advertisement broadcast tomorrow, the purchase of which underlines the vast cash advantage that his campaign – the most lavishly funded in history – enjoys over John McCain.

Opinion polls point to an emphatic victory for the Democrats next week.

Even if he loses the traditional swing states of Ohio and Florida, Mr Obama’s strength across a dozen battlegrounds means that he has many other routes to the magic number of 270 electoral college votes needed to capture the White House.

Mr McCain, who crossed paths with Mr Obama in Ohio yesterday, is rallying his demoralised troops for a last stand. “What America needs is someone who will finish the race before starting the victory lap, someone who will fight to the end – and not for himself but for his country,” he said.

He is spending the next few days defending territory that voted for President Bush four years ago, with events in North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Ohio. Last night he was also travelling to Pennsylvania, a state in which he trails Mr Obama by a double-digit margin but on which his slender hopes of victory may hang. Even in Alaska, the home state of his running-mate, Sarah Palin, the Anchorage Daily News is backing Mr Obama.

Mr McCain yesterday seized upon the disclosure of a radio interview that Mr Obama gave seven years ago when the Democrat suggested that “one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement” was that it had not achieved wealth redistribution. At his rally in Dayton, Mr McCain said: “That is what change means for Barack the Redistributor: It means taking your money and giving it to someone else.”

Tomorrow he will focus on his rival’s lack of national security experience while he has described the prospect of unfettered Democratic power across Washington – with Mr Obama alongside Congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid – as a “dangerous threesome”.

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