John McCain proposed Friday that the elderly be allowed to hang on to the stocks in their retirement funds and not be forced to sell them in a bad market.

The Republican presidential candidate would suspend requirements that people start selling off retirement investments when they turn 70 and a half.

"Spare investors from being forced to sell their stocks just in time when the market is hurting the most," McCain said to cheers at a western Wisconsin rally. "We have to protect investors, particularly those who are relying on investments for retirement."

Retirees forced to sell stocks in the continuing market chaos are taking tremendous losses. The Dow Jones industrials dropped 21 percent of its value in 10 trading days, and swung wildly in early trading Friday while the financial crisis deepened globally.

McCain also told the crowd of his mortgage bailout plan. He said in his debate with Democratic rival Barack Obama on Tuesday that his administration would spend $300 billion to buy bad mortgages and help homeowners refinance into more affordable loans.

McCain's appearance in La Crosse wraps up his two-day journey through the Badger State.

The state hasn't voted for a Republican for president since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

A poll released Wednesday by WISC-TV in Madison showed McCain trailing Obama by 10 points with a month to go before the election. That was McCain's largest deficit since July when polls also showed the Democratic candidate with a double-digit lead.

Late Thursday, he told about 2,500 supporters at a rally outside an airplane hangar at Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee that Wisconsin would be tough for him to carry.

McCain started his Thursday with running mate Sarah Palin, outlining their plan for fixing the troubled economy and attacked opponent Barack Obama before nearly 4,500 enthusiastic supporters at the Center Court Sports Complex in Waukesha.

"Do you know how many times the political pundits in the last two years have written off my campaign?" McCain asked. "We'll win the state of Wisconsin and we'll win this election and you can count on it because we will go to the American people and take our message to them."

To a chorus of cheers, Palin blamed "mainstream media" for not asking Obama tough questions about his policies.

"Are Americans having an opportunity to ask all the questions and are we receiving straight answers from our opponent?" Palin asked, to which the crowd roared a resounding "No!"

Newsradio 620 WTMJ Talk Show Host James T. Harris, attending the event as a spectator, begged McCain to get tougher with Obama in their final debate.

"I am begging you sir, begging you, take it to him," he exclaimed.

"Yes, I'll do that," McCain replied after giving Harris a hug.

Other audience questions weren't quite so plaintive.

"I'm mad. I'm really mad," one man said. "And what's going to surprise you is isn't the economy. It's the socialists taking over our country. ... We are mad! So go get 'em."

"I think I got the message," McCain replied after the crowd broke into a chant of "USA, USA."

"The gentleman is right. The Democrats have been in the majority the past two years, have you seen any improvement?"

McCain also referenced Obama's connection with 1960s radical William Ayers without mentioning him by name.

"Senator Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood. We know that's not true. We need to know the full extent of the relationship," McCain said.

Responding to repeated "ACORN!" calls from the crowd, McCain stopped the audience questions for a moment to address widespread allegations of voter fraud in Milwaukee and throughout a number of battleground states.

"No one must corrupt the most precious right we have and that is the right to vote," he said.

Two people in Milwaukee have been charged with felonies in the past week -- one for submitting false names on voter registration cards and the other for being a felon illegally attempting to register people. Dozens of other possible violations are being investigated.

Outside the sports complex before the event, people waiting in line also brought up the issue to protesters by shouting "Stop voter fraud!" at them.

McCain ended his Thursday with an event in Mosinee.

(620WTMJ's Jay Sorgi and the Associated Press contributed to this report.)