McCain touts oil drilling

McCain touts oil drilling

ABOARD THE CHEVRON GENESIS — Republican presidential candidate John McCain visited this oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday to call for increased offshore drilling that he claims would lower the cost of food and heating homes.

McCain traveled 130 miles by helicopter to tour the massive facility, which produces 10,000 barrels of oil each day. He criticized his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, for not supporting such a plan.

“He says it won’t solve our problem and that it’s, quote, not real. He’s wrong and the American people know it,” McCain told reporters.

Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, called the four-hour excursion nothing more than a stunt.

Obama goes West

LAS VEGAS — Americans have trekked West in search of riches for more than 150 years — and Barack Obama is doing the same.

Like the country’s original frontier settlers, the Democratic presidential hopeful is driven to this Republican-leaning region by a sense of opportunity — and a quest for power.

He desperately wants to win in GOP rival John McCain’s domain, and is playing hard in fast-growing Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico while watching, likely in vain, for a potential opening in Arizona — the state his opponent represents in the Senate.

“This region is very much in play,” said Brian Sanderoff, a nonpartisan pollster in Albuquerque, N.M.

Ads to be pulled Sept. 11

WASHINGTON — Presidential contenders Barack Obama and John McCain plan to pull ads on Sept. 11 that criticize each other, a respite from the political fray to honor the anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The campaigns made their decision known on the same day that a group backing community service on that day called on the candidates to refrain from partisan campaigning. The group, MyGoodDeed.org, wants Sept. 11 to become a national day of voluntary service and asked that Obama and McCain perform acts of community service instead.

Associated Press