McCain stumps for support in Delco
Republican senator calls Pa. a 'key battleground state'
SEN. JOHN McCAIN doesn't have to carry Springfield Township in Delaware County to win the November presidential election, but it ain't a bad place to start.
"No Republican candidate for president of the United States has won that office without carrying Springfield Township," local GOP chairman Michael Puppio told the 1,300 people who packed the Springfield Country Club yesterday for McCain's first Philadelphia-area campaign event.
While Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama continue to slug it out ahead of Pennsylvania's April 22 primary, McCain is plotting his general-election strategy.
And the presumptive Republican nominee said he has no intention of conceding Pennsylvania to the Democrats, even though Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry carried the state in the last four presidential elections.
"I do recognize that Pennsylvania will be a key battleground state," McCain told reporters after wrapping up the first of many town-hall meetings he intends to hold in the state.
The Arizona senator was joined by former Navy Secretary John Lehman as he fielded questions from war veterans, mothers and students at the Springfield Country Club.
If elected president, McCain vowed to make permanent President Bush's tax cuts, eliminate the alternative minimum tax, cut corporate taxes and rein in federal spending by vetoing "every single bill that has a pork-barrel earmark project on it."
He reminisced about the Reagan-era economy, then blasted his colleagues for their "out-of-control" spending.
"We Republicans came to power in 1994 to change government and government changed us, and we went on a spending spree," he said. "My friends, it will stop - the spending spree will stop."
McCain criticized Democrats who support setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, saying that if the troops leave prematurely, "al Qaeda will say they beat the United States of America," and "we will be back [in Iraq] with further sacrifice of American blood and treasure."
And Osama bin Laden? He'll take care of him, too.
"If I have to follow him to the gates of hell, I'll get Osama bin Laden," McCain said, repeating one of his trademark campaign phrases.
There were only a couple of dozen protesters outside the country club yesterday, but McCain faces a larger union backlash in Delaware County from United Aerospace Workers Local 1069, the 1,600-strong union that builds the V-22 Osprey and Chinook helicopters at the Boeing plant in Ridley Township.
Its workers were infuriated this week by reports that McCain's senior campaign advisers served as lobbyists for European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., which beat out Boeing for a $35 billion Air Force aerial-refueling contract.
"It's alarming," said Local 1069 President John DeFranciso, citing the potential loss of jobs and national security ramifications of contracting with a European firm for defense work.
The union likely will endorse Obama or Clinton after the Democratic convention, but it has backed Republicans in the past, including former U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, who was a staunch Boeing supporter.
McCain said earlier this week that he had not helped EADS land the contract, but only insisted that the bidding process be "fair and open and transparent."
Dan Blaschak, 60, a Haverford resident and Norristown High School government and politics teacher, was impressed by McCain's strong stance against earmark spending, a popular practice among both Democrats and Republicans in Washington.
"For him to fight that," Bla-schak said, "it speaks to his 'maverick' side." *