WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – John McCain got warm applause Wednesday in this politically important blue-collar city when he pledged to build more nuclear power plants and support offshore oil drilling – but his town hall meeting was only half-full.
McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, also took aim at Democratic rival Barack Obama, who's traveling in the Middle East. He said Obama's insistence on setting a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq and his opposition to last year's increase of American troops there were a formula for defeat that Obama endorses to curry favor with anti-war voters.
"My friends, when I'm president of the United States, we will come home," said McCain, who opposes any timetable. "We will come home with victory and honor. But we'll never have to go back because we will have won this conflict."
And McCain repeated the accusation, which he first made Tuesday in New Hampshire, that Obama's policy on the war represented the triumph of political expediency over the national interest.
"So apparently, Senator Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a campaign," McCain said to applause.
McCain's chief message, though, involved energy. He stood on the stage at the downtown Kirby Center in front of a huge banner that read "Energy Solutions," and explained how energy is directly tied to national security.
"This is an economic issue, it is an environmental issue, and it is a national security issue," he said. "We are sending $700 billion of American money overseas to pay for this gasoline to countries that don't like us very much. And some of it ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations. That's just a fact."
During the hourlong town meeting, he reiterated his support for suspending the federal 18.4-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax until Labor Day and got applause, but the bigger cheer came from his drilling proposal.
President Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling last week, and McCain noted that oil prices came down immediately. While the price drop probably had little to do with Bush's decision – the ban remains in effect because Congress hasn't agreed to end it – the audience still liked what McCain had to say.
"I don't know that the gas-tax holiday will have much impact, but at least McCain has a plan," said Josh Recine, a graphic artist. "I'm not sure Obama does."
McCain's town hall meeting was another chapter in his weeklong effort to counter the Illinois senator's high-publicity tour of the war zone, the Middle East and Europe. McCain has spent the week alternately blasting Obama in national news interviews and conducting town hall meetings in swing areas.
While the town halls are hardly likely to shove Obama's trip out of the spotlight, some analysts said they thought they could help McCain in the long run.
"He gets lots of local ink out of them, in places where he needs to do well," said Randall Miller, a professor of history at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.
Call David Lightman, McClatchy Washington Bureau, (202) 383-6101. The Philadelphia Inquirer contributed to this report.
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