Maverick McCain visits Lima

LIMA - Offering himself during a town hall meeting campaign stop as the candidate of reform, bipartisan work and independence when needed, Republican John McCain reminded voters he's been called a maverick.

"Sometimes it is meant as a compliment and sometimes it is meant as a criticism. But what it really means is I understand who I work for," McCain said to hundreds gathered at the Veterans Memorial Civic Center. "I don't work for a party. I don't work for a president. I don't work for a special interest. I don't work for myself. I work for you and for the country we love."

McCain said Democratic opponent Barack Obama's policy proposals are some of the worst for the country's future.

"Senator Obama's agenda can be summarized as this: Government is too big, and he wants to grow it. Taxes are too high, and he wants to raise them. Congress spends too much, and he proposes more," McCain said. "We need more energy, and he's against producing it. We're finally winning in Iraq, and he wants to forfeit."

Hitting his opponent hard on the energy issue and scolding Congress for leaving it undone, McCain pushed Thursday for energy independence through new offshore drilling and aggressive alternative fuel investments.

McCain proposed investing $2 billion a year in clean-coal technology and nuclear power plants. He wants 45 plants by 2030, he said from his campaign bus earlier in the day. He also wants $5,000 tax credits to help consumers buy hybrid cars. Investments in those areas would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, needed, McCain said, because "the old jobs aren't coming back."

He said he supports ethanol as a biofuel but opposes government subsidies for it, as he opposes all farm subsidies.

On immigration, a topic on which many conservatives disagree with McCain, he pledged comprehensive reform soon in his first term, by securing the borders first so the American people believe it and support other changes, such as a temporary worker program and creating a path to citizenship for people who are in the country illegally but otherwise law-abiding, McCain said.

McCain was asked if he would still vote for the Iraq war and McCain emphatically said yes, and believed Saddam Hussein would be even more dangerous today with high oil profits spent on weapons of mass destruction.

He called education a "civil rights" issue and pushed for "choice and competition" in schools, vouchers, charter schools, rewarding good schools and teachers and penalizing bad ones.

McCain called himself an underdog in the race and recognized the importance of Ohio as a battleground state again this election. The Republican has pulled within a statistical tie against Obama in recent Ohio polling.

McCain's second presidential campaign had been left for dead two summers ago when he visited and spoke to troops in Iraq. Inspired by soldiers who had re-enlisted to stay in Iraq, McCain embarked on his "No Surrender" tour and had a "Lazarus-like experience," he said.

The bond between McCain, a Vietnam prisoner of war, and veterans was palpable Thursday in the Civic Center. He promoted a Medicare-like system for veterans, so they could visit the health care provider of their choice instead of fighting the red tape of Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals and facilities.

He listened to the father of an Iraq war veteran who's battling several medical issues now. One man, Mike Haines, drove from southern Ohio just to shake McCain's hand. McCain rewarded the man with an embrace to a standing ovation.