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YOUNGSTOWN — When Jennifer Natale went to a John McCain-Sarah Palin rally, she never expected her family to be invited to eat dinner with the Republican presidential nominee.
“I was at the rally and someone plucked us out of the crowd” and asked her and her family to join McCain and his wife, Cindy, for a meal, she said.
Natale quickly called her husband, Carmen, who works in Akron and wasn’t at Tuesday’s rally in Vienna, to come to the MVR, a Youngstown restaurant in the city’s Smoky Hollow District. The couple live in Hiram, but are both natives of Warren.
“He’s a wonderful man; just a gentleman,” she said of McCain. “It was wonderful to have dinner with him.”
Also eating with the McCains were the couple’s children, Virginia, 8, and Matt, 4, as well as Jennifer’s parents, Ted and Darlene Smith of Warren.
The campaign also asked the Nielsen family of Struthers to join the McCains for dinner. That includes Ken, a locksmith, and his wife, Karen, who works at a local church and their three children: Robert, 16; Heather, 15; and Kayla, 13.
“He’s very humble, very personable and he cares,” Karen Nielsen said of McCain.
The campaign didn’t call MVR about dinner until about 3 p.m., said Patty Cassese, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Carmine.
The McCain motorcade, assisted by the Ohio State Highway Patrol, took a long route from the rally in Vienna to the Youngstown restaurant.
After dinner, the McCains — who both had spaghetti and meatballs — went to a Howland hotel to spend the night.
Today’s going to be another busy day on the campaign trail.
The U.S. senator from Arizona is to appear today on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” The show is being broadcast live from the Gustavus farm of Henry and Linda Lipps.
McCain is expected to be on for a brief time around 7:20 a.m. After a local news break, McCain is to be interviewed from about 7:30 to 8 a.m.
On Tuesday, the McCains were joined by Palin, his vice presidential running mate, and her husband, Todd, at the Winner Aviation hanger at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport in Vienna for a “Victory 2008 Rally.”
About 7,000 people attended the event.
Neither candidate spent much time talking; about 15 minutes each.
McCain primarily targeted Wall Street on Tuesday criticizing banks and other lending and investment institutions for their “reckless corruption and unbridled greed.”
McCain told the enthusiastic crowd, “When I’m president, we’re not going to tolerate that anymore. We’ll hold the people of Wall Street responsible.”
This came a day after McCain said at a Florida event that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult times.” He explained the comment further on MSNBC early Tuesday saying he was talking about workers and not the overall economy.
At the Vienna rally, McCain offered hope for the future.
“Now I believe America’s best days are ahead of us,” he said. “Gov. Palin and I are going to reform Wall Street. We’re going to reform Washington. I’m going to fight for you and I’m going to lead our nation forward in the greatest periods of prosperity in its history.”
Two Democratic leaders, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, criticized McCain for the comments.
McCain is “clearly out of touch” on economic issues. Ryan added that McCain is “so far detached from what the reality is on the ground.”
This was McCain’s third visit to the Mahoning Valley, a longtime Democratic stronghold, since April. It was the first time Palin campaigned in the area.
As she’s done in other stump speeches, Palin focused on Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, but never mentioned his name, preferring to call him “our opponent.”
Palin said “our opponent” has a plan for change that includes raising taxes that would destroy small businesses.
“He’d make today’s bad economy look like the good old days” if Obama is elected president.
Palin spent a good portion of her speech praising McCain as someone who will reform government.
Palin, who spent Monday night at the same Howland hotel that McCain stayed at Tuesday, praised the Republican presidential nominee as “the only great man in this race.”
Palin added that it’s a “privilege” to be McCain’s running mate and “it’s going to be the most humbling experience” to serve as his vice president.
If elected, the two “are going to shake things up” in Washington, D.C., Palin said.
She acknowledged that winning Ohio is going to be a “battle,” but one that she and McCain are ready to fight.
For a number of those at the rally, Palin was the real drawing card.
“She’s smart, she’s ambitious, she’s very accomplished, and I hope she’ll be our next president after serving as vice president,” said Lydia Johnson of Champion, who described herself as a lifelong Democrat who’s supporting the McCain-Palin ticket.
Johnson wasn’t the only Democrat at the rally supporting McCain and Palin.
Austintown Township Trustee Lisa Oles, a Democrat, spoke to the crowd about why she’s voting for the Republicans.
“It comes down to national security and I want a commander in chief who knows what going to war is all about,” she said of McCain, who served in the Vietnam War. “It’s a critical time in our nation’s history and it’s not the time for on-the-job training,” a reference to Obama.
Also, Joe Biden, Obama’s vice presidential running mate, will hold a Thursday rally in downtown Youngstown. Biden will speak in front of the city-owned 20 Federal Place, the former Phar-Mor Centre.
This will be Biden’s first rally in the Mahoning Valley. The campaign expects about 1,000 people to attend the event.
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