Election day is less than a month away, and the gloves are coming off on the campaign trail.

Sarah Palin is expanding the Republican attacks on Barack Obama's character.

Instead of just focusing on his association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, Palin is also talking about Obama's former pastor and his controversial anti-American remarks.

In an interview with the New York Times, published today, Palin said there should be more discussion about Jeremiah Wright, who was Obama's pastor for 20 years. Obama denounced Wright last spring and cut his ties with Wright's church after videos surfaced showing the pastor making anti-American and anti-Semitic comments from the pulpit.

This morning, at a rally in Florida, Palin kept up her criticism of Obama's ties to Bill Ayers, a founder of the violent Weather Underground group. The group was blamed for several bombings during the Vietnam War era.

Barack Obama says there's a reason John McCain and Sarah Palin are trying to focus attention on people he's been associated with in the past -- like his former pastor and a 1960s-era radical.

Obama says McCain is trying to shift attention from the economy, because that's a bad issue for McCain.

Obama told reporters in North Carolina that he can't imagine anything more important to talk about than people who are losing their jobs, their health care, their savings and their homes.

Obama says he's going to keep talking about the economy.