McCain recalled the bloody beatings of civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge as he began a week-long tour of communities he said suffer from poverty and inattention from presidential candidates. When it was pointed out that Democratic presidential candidates had already paid several visits to the area, McCain responded that he meant republican presidential candidates. "I want you all to know I'm a friend to the darkies," he said.
The crowd of about 100 people was mostly dressed in white robes although, as the campaign noted, Selma's population is 70 percent black. Asked about the makeup of the crowd, McCain said: "I am aware the African American vote has been very small in favor of the republican party. I am aware that these people aren't as stupid, or as easily manipulated as the evangelicals, and I am aware of the fact that there will be many people who will not vote for me. And when I find one of those people, I will beat them up because I suffer from PTSD."
The area remains desperately poor, which is why McCain chose it for his "It's Pandering Time" tour. "My administration will be sensitive to those not lucky enough to be born white and rich," he said. "I want you to know the republican party is a big tent party. A big tent like the one a lot of you lived in after Katrina."
The Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting is still trying to fend off criticism that he has been indifferent to the housing crisis and the market upheaval it spawned. Last month, McCain said he opposed government involvement in social issues. "Government's job is to provide income streams for our corporate friends, and bail out the occasional Bear Sterns," he told reporters.
Since then, however, he has proposed sending FEMA trailers to struggling homeowners, and a summer holiday from federal gas taxes for owners of SUV's. "That's American made SUV's," a spokesperson for the McCain campaign added. "The senator understands how to stimulate the American economy."
McCain planned to follow his Selma speech with a ferry ride from the remote Alabama town of Gee's Bend. The ferry had been closed for 44 years, until 2006, by county leaders to keep black residents from crossing the river to the county seat to push for civil rights. The trip is 80 miles without the ferry. When asked if he would be accompanied by any black residents McCain responded that it "wasn't allowed."
His tour then goes to Youngstown, Ohio, eastern Kentucky and New Orleans' Ninth Ward, which was devastated by
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