Chicago, Nov. 18: Losing Republican presidential candidate and Arizona Senator John McCain has revealed that he is ready to help President-elect Barack Obama fix America up.

McCain is said to have conveyed this message to Obama when the two of them met here on Monday afternoon to discuss ways to work together in the future.

Both met in Obama''s transition headquarters in Chicago and were assisted by Rahm Emanuel, Obama''s incoming White House chief of staff, and South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, McCain''s close friend, Fox News reports.

Obama said before the meeting that he and McCain planned "a good conversation about how they could work together to fix up the country, and also to offer thanks to McCain for the outstanding service he''s already rendered."

When asked if he planned to help the Obama administration, McCain replied, "Obviously."

A joint statement from the two men stressed after the 40-minute meeting that it was a "productive" conversation and they would work together on "critical challenges" such as the financial crisis, security and energy.

"At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time," the former opponents said in the statement, also noting a need for "a new era of reform" and taking on government waste and partisanship in Washington.

Obama and McCain clashed bitterly during the fall campaign over taxes, the Iraq War, and ways to fix the ailing economy. Things got ugly at times, with McCain running ads comparing Obama to celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and raising questions about his rival''s distant relationship with a 1960s-era radical, William Ayers.

Obama''s campaign, meanwhile, labeled the 72-year old McCain "erratic" and ran a campaign ad falsely suggesting that McCain and Rush Limbaugh shared similar anti-immigration views. (ANI)