McCain makes burger stop in Springs

With only 11 days till Election Day, Sen. John McCain made a campaign swing through Colorado on Friday, with low-key appearances in Colorado Springs sandwiched between rallies in Denver and Durango.

In the Springs, the Republican presidential nominee visited Springs Fabrication, a maker of precision machined parts, and declared that the health of small businesses will be a major issue for the remainder of the campaign, and that Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan would hurt them.

After touring the factory, McCain met privately with its president, Tom Neppl, and a dozen other local small-business owners, then emerged to issue a statement supporting tax cuts for small businesses.

"They have a lot of challenges out there in the way of obtaining health insurance for themselves and their employees and getting lines of credit and all the small business challenges that they face today," McCain said. "They don't want anybody's taxes raised.

They do not want capital gains taxes raised. They feel that what they need is lower taxes and less government regulation on their business."

"So far this year we've lost well over 700,000 jobs," he continued. "Over 300,000 jobs have been created by small business. They are the economic hope for the future, and it's very obvious to them and to me that Senator Obama's tax plans, including his votes to raise taxes on individuals making as little as $42,000 a year as well as his constantly changing tax plan, the one that we are focusing on recently would raise taxes on half of the small-business income in America."

"That's not what American small business needs, and this will be a focal point, I believe, in the last 11 days of this campaign."

He declined to take questions.

McCain needs a strong turnout of Colorado Springs conservatives to have a good chance of winning Colorado and its nine electoral votes. But although his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, held a rally here Monday, McCain did not schedule any event here to which the general public was invited.

"As opposed to having a big rally, he wanted to have a quiet conversation with the people who are bringing jobs to Colorado Springs," said Tom Kise, a McCain spokesman.

McCain arrived in the Springs from Denver, where he told a crowd at the National Western Arena that "this is going to be a tough state, but we're going to win here."

He repeated his disavowal of a remark he made in August that the Colorado River Compact "obviously needs to be renegotiated" - a red flag for Coloradans, who fear that more Colorado River water will be allotted to downstream states, including McCain's Arizona.

In Durango, McCain appeared at a rally at a local high school's athletic field. Kise, a McCain estimated the crowd in Denver at 4,000 and the one in Durango at 6,500-7,000.

Kise said McCain was the first major-party presidential candidate to visit Durango since John Kennedy. "People said Republicans don't go there," Kise said. "We said, ‘Well, you know what? These kinds of Republicans do.'"

After arriving at Colorado Springs Airport about 1 p.m., McCain's motorcade made a beeline to the Conway's Red Top on Circle Drive. Dozens of reporters, photographers and TV technicians crowded into the hamburger joint, a Springs institution, to record McCain shaking hands with surprised patrons and posing for pictures before sitting down to eat with his wife, Cindy; Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of McCain's closest advisers; and former Denver Broncos star John Elway.

The press was then shooed away, but a spokesman said McCain had a burger, fries and a Coke. The Rocky Mountain News was able to inform a waiting world that the candidate and his wife both ordered a half burger with Velveeta cheese, while Elway ordered a full burger.

The local delegation that greeted McCain on arrival at Colorado Springs Airport was led by Greg Garcia, chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party, and some of his top volunteers, including Jane Neary, who said she was the first to sign up when McCain's Colorado Springs campaign office opened in July.

The McCain campaign has reduced its advertising in Colorado, prompting speculation that his strategists were writing the state off. But Kise described the candidates' visits to Colorado this week as a "huge outlay of campaign resources and of the candidates' time, which is the most valuable resource we have."

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Contact the writer: 476-1654 or dean.toda@gazette.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.


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