McCain looks to defend Va., take Pa. for GOP
PERKASIE, Pa. -- John McCain spent Saturday trying to keep Virginia in the Republican column and take Pennsylvania away from the Democrats.
McCain asked voters gathered in an airplane hangar here for their help as he struggles to win Pennsylvania, which has voted Democratic for the last four presidential elections. He also made an appearance on television's Saturday Night Live— accompanied by his wife, Cindy, for one sketch.
McCain trails Democrat Barack Obama in statewide polls by an average of about nine percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics.com.
McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have tried to appeal to white working-class voters in Pennsylvania — a voting bloc that Obama has had difficulty winning over. Working-class voters strongly backed Obama rival Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Democratic primaries.
At a lunchtime rally in Springfield, Va. — near Washington, D.C. — McCain sought to distance himself from President Bush. "We need a new direction and we have to fight for it," McCain said.
Obama is making a major push in Virginia, especially in the vote-rich Washington suburbs. A win by Obama in Virginia would cap a Democratic trend in the state, which has elected two straight Democratic governors — Mark Warner and Tim Kaine — but last picked a Democrat for president in 1964. (That was Lyndon Johnson.)
Polls in Virginia show Obama leading McCain by an average of nearly seven percentage points. Warner, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, has taped radio ads for Obama that are playing in key Virginia markets. McCain's campaign has been a fixture on Virginia radio and TV as well, hitting Obama on taxes.
He told the Springfield, Va. crowd on Saturday that he has always had faith in the USA and that the country "has never had to prove anything to me." The line was a reference to a comment made by Obama on Friday, in which the Democratic nominee said his victory earlier this year in the Iowa caucuses "vindicated" his faith in the American people.
