After months of being outgunned by Democrats on the air, the Republican Party will keep pace in the homestretch in Florida with a multimillion-dollar television blitz that compares electing Barack Obama to getting on a plane with an amateur pilot.

More than $2 million will be spent in South Florida alone to deflate a potential groundswell for Obama, who drew standing-room-only crowds in heavily Republican Sarasota and in Orlando and Sunrise over the past two days.

One anti-Obama spot shows innocuous images of a plane taking off, children on a swing set and a doctor performing surgery and asks: ``Would you get on a plane with a pilot who has never flown? Would you trust your child with someone who has never cared for children? Would you go under with a surgeon who has never operated?''

The ad ends by calling Obama ``untested.''

The debate in the final days boils down to experience vs. -- as the Democrats put it -- the last eight years.

ECONOMIC MESSAGE

In Sarasota County, which President Bush won twice, Obama pointed to reports Thursday that the gross domestic product, a broad measure of the nation's economic health, suffered its deepest decline since 2001.

''Well, Florida, if you want to know where Senator McCain will drive this economy, just look in the rearview mirror,'' Obama told the crowd of about 12,500 people.

''When it comes to our economic policies, John McCain has stood with President Bush every step of the way,'' he said.

Both campaigns are pulling out all the stops this weekend to mobilize supporters. Republican vice presidential contender Sarah Palin is slated to headline three rallies Saturday in Central Florida, the most competitive region of the state. Democrat Joe Biden is going after the youth vote in Tallahassee, Gainesville and Daytona Beach.

2000 REVISITED

Tugging on passions from the 2000 presidential recount, the Obama campaign is dispatching former Vice President Al Gore and his wife Tipper to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach on Friday.

''Al Gore has a history interwoven with Florida, and he is certainly emblematic of how precious every vote is,'' said Fort Lauderdale attorney Mitchell Berger, a Democratic fundraiser and Gore advisor in 2000.

Berger said he wouldn't be surprised to see the presidential nominees back Monday or Tuesday for a last-minute pitch.

''They'll look at the overnight polling and data as to who has voted and what vote is still outstanding, and they'll figure it out,'' Berger said.

``It's data, and it's gut.''

CATCHING OBAMA

A Florida Chamber of Commerce poll released Thursday showed Obama four percentage points ahead of McCain.

And the Democratic Party boasts a 200,000-vote advantage over the GOP among people who have voted early at the polls or by absentee ballot.

With his presidential bid on the line, McCain has been struggling to catch up to Obama on television. The Republican Party's national fundraising arm has sought to close the gap, purchasing $2 million to $2.5 million in ads covering Miami-Dade and Broward counties for the last two weeks of the campaign, said Brad Todd, a political consultant overseeing the ads.

The hard-hitting ads in Miami, Tampa and Orlando contrast with a new positive spot featuring Gov. Charlie Crist. The governor calls McCain an ''American hero'' and doesn't mention Obama.

DO-OR-DIE TIME

''The most important five days in a campaign are the last five days,'' said Todd, of OnMessage, a Washington-area campaign media firm. ``The most important two weeks in a campaign are the last two weeks.''

The urgency was not lost on Obama supporters in Sarasota, including Joan Johnson, who joined a line six blocks long to get into the stadium.

''It's showtime,'' she shouted. ``I don't care if I don't get in as long as people see that all these people in line are standing behind Obama.''

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