Taking a crack at traditionally Republican voters and calling himself the underdog in the presidential race, an ebullient Barack Obama entertained a crowd of 300 supporters Monday night in an Atlanta suburb that took him all day to reach.

Obama, happy to be at his destination after having cancelled an appearance in Charlotte, N.C., joked about his earlier unscheduled landing in St. Louis, a safety measure taken when the emergency slide deployed in air from the tail cone of his chartered campaign plane. He and the national press covering him remained in St. Louis for hours while a new plane was sent in to pick up the passengers. Obama addressed the North Carolina crowd by phone.

"It's so great to be on the ground," he joked at the start of a 15-minute speech.

Packed into the banquet hall at the upscale neighborhood near the governor's mansion, guests heard Obama say that the one great accomplishment of President Bush is that he unified Americans to understand that the country is on the wrong track.

"If you talk to (your Republican neighbors) as they're out, maybe not moving the lawn, but supervising that, they will tell you that they think that the country is on the wrong track too," Obama told a laughing crowd.

Obama also attacked the economic policies of John McCain, saying they are "indistinguishable" from Bush's and would benefit the wealthy and rich corporations while adding "trillions of dollars to the national debt. "

He told the guests, who had paid at least $2,300 and as much as $10,000 per person to attend the fundraiser, "If you're satisfied with the way things are, you should vote for John McCain."

Obama also pledged to transform the electoral map, vowing that this year's election won't "hinge on Florida."

"We're not going to go down that route again," he said, adding that despite McCain's claims to be the underdog -- the presumptive Republican nominee trails in almost every poll -- Obama is in fact the one who must come from behind.

"John McCain calls himself the underdog. I will simply point out, for reasons you might consider apparent, that I am the underdog. I will be the underdog until I'm sworn in," he said.

Obama also said his acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination -- scheduled to be delivered on Aug. 28, the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial -- "is not a testament to me. It's a testament to generations of folks."

The acceptance speech is to be delivered at Invesco Field in Denver, which seats 75,000 people and is intended to demonstrate the popularity he has achieved during the course of his campaign. It follows the lead of John F. Kennedy, who was also labeled a transformational leader by his supporters.

At a second fundraiser in which guests paid $28,500 to attend, Obama said those in attendance were helping pay for future American dreams.

"The essence of the American dream is that every successive generation does a little better," he said. "A lot of bad habits that have built up in our system (have) to be broken. ... Because of your extraordinary support -– and because of your generosity -– we're going to do that."