McCain campaigns in Missouri's conservative base
Jun 19, 2008, 08:55
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) -- Gary Oversmith wore a John McCain sticker on his shirt and arrived five hours early Wednesday for the Republican presidential candidate's first southwest Missouri campaign event, all to ensure a good seat from which to ask a question about energy policy.
A self-described rural conservative who didn't originally back McCain, Oversmith is slowly coming around.
And McCain will need plenty of voters like him if he is to counteract Democrat Barack Obama's anticipated urban strength in Missouri's general election.
McCain called for the construction of 45 nuclear power plants by 2030 and pledged $2 billion a year in federal funds for cleaner-burning coal power plants. He spoke at a town-hall style forum at Missouri State University during which he also fielded about a dozen questions from the audience on wide-ranging topics.
Energy development was McCain's national campaign message for the day. But he also delivered a more subtle message to Missouri Republicans merely by appearing in the state's traditionally conservative southwest corner, a region he lost decisively to Mike Huckabee in Missouri's Feb. 5 presidential primary.
Oversmith, who voted for Mitt Romney in the Republican primary, is among McCain's necessary converts for the general election.
