LYNCHBURG, Va. — Barack Obama campaigned Wednesday in a conservative stretch of this swing state that’s key to his election strategy, telling voters who are more in line with John McCain on social issues that they should vote for Mr. Obama because of their economic woes.

At an evening town-hall meeting in Lynchburg — the hometown of the late televangelist Jerry Falwell and his Liberty University — Mr. Obama told a crowd that on the economy, “John McCain just doesn’t get it.”

“Are you better off than you were four years ago? Are you better off than you were eight years ago?” Mr. Obama said. “Well, then, why the heck would you want to do the same thing?

For his part, Mr. McCain was campaigning in New Mexico, where he once again challenged Mr. Obama’s qualifications to be president.

“Let me be clear: I am not questioning his patriotism; I am questioning his judgment,” Mr. McCain said at a town hall meeting in Las Cruces. “Sen. Obama has made it clear that he values withdrawal from Iraq above victory in Iraq, even today with victory in sight.”

Mr. McCain said he’d end the war in Iraq “but when I bring our troops home, they will come home with honor and victory, leaving Iraq secured as a democratic ally in the Arab heartland.”

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., introducing Mr. Obama in Lynchburg, said the state’s manufacturing belt “may well hold the key” to how Virginia votes in the presidential race in November because of dissatisfaction with Republican leadership on the economy.

Earlier, at an event in Martinsville, Va., Mr. Obama praised Mr. McCain’s service but told the audience that the Arizona senator would continue the economic policies of President Bush. “My job in this election is to say, I honor his service but I don’t honor his policies, and I don’t honor his politics,” Mr. Obama said of Mr. McCain.