McCain Slams Federal Response to Katrina

April 24, 2008— -- Under a sweltering spring sun, Sen John McCain, R-Ariz., strolled a desolate thoroughfare today in this city's still-devastated Ninth Ward. His guides were the state's new governor, Republican Bobby Jindal, often named as a possible running mate, and several African-American community leaders.

Photographers, camera people and reporters packed onto two flatbed National Guard trucks that led the way were there to bear witness to spectacle: a Republican running for president in an overwhelmingly Democratic, black neighborhood.

After walking four blocks, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee stood outside a church and proceeded to criticize President Bush, a fellow Republican, for the federal response to Hurricane Katrina.

"Never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way it was handled," McCain said. "It will never, ever happen again."

Eileen Ancer, an African-American resident of the area and a Democrat, stood off to the side, listening as McCain fielded or deflected reporters' questions.

Afterward she pronounced the walk and the talk "a good photo op. Nothing more," she said.

But others said they were heartened that a presidential candidate would visit their neighborhood.

"I'm very impressed that he came down," said George Brooks, a black resident of the Ninth Ward, who noticed the crowd following McCain and stopped to hear what he had to say. "We need people to take interest in what's happening here regardless of the party."

Another observer, Linda Pichon, said, "For him coming over here to know what's going on, that was very good."

While he was in New Orleans, McCain also held one of his signature town-hall meetings at a predominately black, Catholic college.

"I don't know how many votes I'm going to get in Selma, Ala.," he said. "I don't know how many votes I'll get here in the city of New Orleans, but I want to ensure every American that I will be a president of all the people."

This week, McCain has gone to what he called "forgotten areas" that are in economic distress. Monday, McCain traveled to Selma and spoke about the attack on black civil rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge 43 years ago.

He campaigned Tuesday in Youngstown, Ohio, a Rust Belt Democratic stronghold that voted two-to-one for Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., in 2004. Wednesday, he visited Inez, Ky., a mostly white coal town in Appalachia, where President Lyndon Johnson declared his War on Poverty in 1964.

The McCain campaign is targeting moderate and independent voters, in part by trying to distinguish himself as a "different" kind of Republican in the hopes of prying voters of color from the Democrats, especially Hispanics but also African-Americans.

"The balance John McCain is trying to strike is to not be the anti-Bush candidate, but to be the 'un-Bush' candidate," Time magazine political writer Mark Halperin said.

"That would have to appeal to a lot of minority voters if he can pull it off. That's partly why he's going on this trip."

For McCain, the continuing internecine warfare that is consuming the Democratic Party is providing him the luxury of going behind Democratic lines in pursuit of some of that party's most loyal voters.