HIGHLAND: Democrat Barack Obama vowed Friday to avert a "potential meltdown" in the clogged financial system as he listed his top priorities if he is elected America's first black president next week.

At campaign rallies in Iowa and Indiana, the Illinois senator said Tuesday's election against John McCain would dismantle Republican politics of divide and rule "once and for all" and chart a new course of national unity.

Addressing more than 40,000 supporters here after visiting his daughters in Chicago for Halloween, Obama said "Malia and Sasha, each year they've got trouble deciding what (costume characters) they want to be for Halloween."

"John McCain didn't have that problem. Just like every year, he's going as George W. Bush," he said, once again linking his White House rival to the president's shattered economic legacy.

The Democratic front-runner said the other pressing priorities if he wins would be achieving energy independence and enacting universal health care for Americans reeling from the economic crisis.

"And none of this can be accomplished if we continue to see a potential meltdown in the banking system or the financial system," he told CNN in Iowa, where he beat Hillary Clinton in the year's first Democratic nominating clash.

"So that's priority number one, making sure that the plumbing works in our capitalist system," Obama said.

He refused to detail his potential choice of Treasury secretary -- but noted that his economic advisers include ex-Treasury secretary Larry Summers, former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker and billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

Obama also backed a call by General David Petraeus, the new supremo of US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, to initiate contacts with Taliban elements in Afghanistan.

The Democrat said that if contacts modeled on a US alliance with former Sunni extremists in Iraq can lure those Taliban members away "from the hard-core militants that are aligned with Al-Qaeda, that would be beneficial."