Flint, Mich. ? Barack Obama broadly accused his Republican rivals of dishonesty Monday, citing former lobbyists working for John McCain, Sarah Palin’s shifting stance on the “Bridge to Nowhere” and their promise to change Washington.

With national polls finding the Democratic presidential nominee trailing or in a dead heat with McCain, Obama began the campaign’s final eight-week push by criticizing McCain’s popular running mate as much as the Arizona senator himself.

The election should be about who can change people’s lives for the better, Obama said. That won’t come from a Republican ticket that almost always supports the same positions as President Bush even though they say they will bring reform, he said.

“I mean, you can’t just make stuff up,” Obama said of a new McCain ad that says Palin “stopped the Bridge to Nowhere.” “You can’t just recreate yourself. You can’t just reinvent yourself. The American people aren’t stupid.”

Obama wouldn’t go so far as to say McCain and Palin are lying, even when the audience tried to goad him into it.

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded to the charges of dishonesty by saying: “Barack Obama should familiarize himself with the honest facts: John McCain and Governor Palin have actually reformed government to root out money in politics and fought wasteful spending – Sen. Obama has not.”