Man who was POW with McCain coming to Cape Girardeau Friday

A retired Navy captain who spent more than five years in a North Vietnamese prison with Sen. John McCain will make a Friday visit to Cape Girardeau, the McCain presidential campaign announced Wednesday.

The event with Charlie Plumb, a Navy pilot who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967, will be at 11:15 a.m. at the Team Emerson offices, 400 Broadway, The visit is part of a statewide tour that will also include stops in St. Louis, Springfield and Kansas City.

"His first mission with John McCain was to survive years of captivity as prisoners of war," the McCain campaign said in a news release. "His current mission is to make sure Missouri voters know how John McCain continues to fight and put 'country first.'"

McCain is the Republican presidential nominee, attempting to keep Missouri in the Republican column. A new poll for CNN/Time conducted by Opinion Research Corp. and released Wednesday, shows Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama is in a dead heat in Missouri with McCain. Among likely voters, Obama received 48 percent of the vote to McCain's 49 percent. Among registered voters, Obama leads 50 percent to 47 percent. The poll was conducted Oct. 11 to Oct. 14 and has a margin of error of 3 percent for likely voters and 3.5 percent for registered voters.

For more information, check back at semissourian.com or read Thursday's Southeast Missourian.