McCain stops in Missouri to bolster support before vote

CHESTERFIELD, Mo. -- Republican presidential front-runner John McCain made his final pitch to Missouri voters Friday in an airplane hangar here, saying he was the best candidate to draw conservative voters to the polls.

"I will inspire a generation of Americans to serve a cause greater than their self interest," McCain told a crowd of several hundred people in suburban St. Louis.

With a poll showing him ahead in Missouri just days before the state's primary election Tuesday, McCain laid out his policy plans and took aim at Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

He was joined on stage by Missouri's former Republican senator John Danforth, who endorsed McCain earlier this week. During his introduction, Danforth levied harsh criticism of McCain's Democratic opponents.

"Have you ever heard any of the Democrats ... utter a single sentence that the audience did not want to hear?" Danforth asked. "It is simply the politics to me, me, me."

McCain focused much of his speech on economic issues after the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday that the U.S. economy lost 17,000 jobs -- the first such loss since 2003. McCain said a key measure to revive the ailing economy was to make permanent tax cuts that he originally voted against.

"The tax cuts we enacted must be made permanent," he said. Letting the tax cuts expire as planned in 2010 would only hurt the economy further, he said.

McCain promised an increase in veterans benefits and a commitment to stay in Iraq until the country was stabilized.

He criticized Obama and Clinton for suggesting last summer that the United States draw down combat troops in Iraq more quickly than President Bush wanted.

"If we had done what Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton had wanted us to do, I guarantee you that al-Qaida would be saying that they had defeated the United States of America," McCain said.

A recent St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV-TV poll of 500 Republicans found McCain in the lead with 31 percent of the support. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee had 25 percent and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney had 21 percent. The poll was taken before former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race and showed him with 8 percent, just ahead of Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 6 percent.

McCain seems to have at least won two more votes at Friday's rally.

Bill and Marion Howells, both 67, said they had been torn between McCain and Romney. McCain's talk seemed to seal both their votes in his favor.

"McCain is probably more energetic and more inspiring than Romney," Bill Howells said.