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McCain in Waukesha: 'We will win the state of Wisconsin'

John Nichols  —  10/09/2008 2:19 pm

WAUKESHA -- On a day when the Milwaukee media were abuzz with talk about how John McCain had dissed the state's largest city, and when new polls suggested he was trailing Democratic Barack Obama by 10 points, the Republican nominee for president announced that he still plans to win Wisconsin.

"We can, we must and we will win the state of Wisconsin," shouted McCain, as he began a town hall meeting with running mate Sarah Palin at the packed Waukesha's Center Court Sports Complex.

That's probably true, as McCain has quit campaigning in several states that had been seen as battlegrounds -- most notably Michigan -- so Wisconsin looms as an even more important state on an electoral map that offers the Republican a dwindling number of options.

McCain's pledge to fight on was well received in Waukesha, the largest city is one of the state's most reliably Republican counties.

The sports facility was packed with McCain-Palin backers, who had come to cheer on -- or, perhaps, cheer up -- the Republican ticket on the day after new surveys by WISC-TV and the national Rasmussen and Survey USA polling groups all showed the GOP ticket was trailing the Democrats by at least 10 points in the battlground state of Wisconsin.

If that wasn't enough of a burden, Milwaukee's top news radio station, WTMJ, was reporting that McCain told Washington Post reporter Mark Leibovich in 2004 that he would despise residing in the state's largest city. "(McCain) was just talking about various random things that two people sitting next to each other in the course of a three-hour baseball game talk about," recalled Leibovich, who was writing a profile of the Arizona senator at the time, in an interview with WTMJ on the eve on the Republican candidate's latest visit to the state. "For whatever reason, he said he would hate to live in Milwaukee. I put it in my story, and lo and behold, four years later, a radio station in Milwaukee has found it."

Whatever his sentiments regarding Milwaukee, McCain is working hard to win the votes of out-state Wisconsinites this week. He was in Waukesha this morning and will be in Mosinee this afternoon. Tomorrow morning, he's in La Crosse.

And his pitch is a populist one.

Noting the obvious -- that the economic crisis has become the central issue of the presidential campaign -- McCain told the packed hall in Waukesha that, "It is affecting every house, every owner, every small business owner, every employee, every family in the United States of America."

"These are somber times," he continued. "We need to get this economy turned around, and we need to get it turned around immediately."

Promoting the plan to renegotiate burdensome mortgages that he announced in the most recent presidential debate, McCain scored Obama for not embracing the initiative.

Addressing Obama rhetorically, the Republican demanded to know: "Do you want to help the homeowners of America, or do you want to help Wall Street?"

Speaking in Dayton, Ohio, today, Obama suggested that McCain was the one who had taken Wall Street's side. Describing the Republican's plan, the Democrat said, "Senator McCain actually wants the government to pay the full face value of mortgages on the books, even though they're not worth that much anymore. It's a plan that would guarantee that American taxpayers lose by handing over $300 billion to underwrite the kind of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street that got us into this mess. But it's not just that the McCain bailout rewards irresponsible lenders, it's that his bailout would make it more likely that those lenders keep up their bad behavior."

Obama took even harder hits in Waukesha from Palin, who suggested that the senator from Illinois was afraid to engage in real dedates with McCain. Noting that the Republican team had proposed a series of at least 10 town-hall meeting style debates nationwide, the vice presidential contender said, "Barack Obama said no. Now I think we can understand why. The other night, Americans got a good look at the choices they will face Nov. 4."

In fact, most surveys of voters who watched this week's debate said Obama won.

Palin suggested that was not the case and the crowd from Republican-red Waukesha County cheered in agreement.

John Nichols  —  10/09/2008 2:19 pm