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McCain Fires Up Backers At Last-Day Tampa Rally

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By WILLIAM MARCH | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 4, 2008

TAMPA - John McCain, on his last visit to the Tampa Bay area before today's election, gave a quick speech Monday to a small but enthusiastic crowd at Raymond James Stadium, telling them the election isn't lost.

"The pundits may not know it and the Democrats may not know it, but the Mac is back. We're going to win this election," he told the wildly cheering crowd.

McCain kept it short - less than 15 minutes - and raced away to the airport immediately afterward for a lightning fly-around tour of seven stops in battleground states before landing in Arizona last night.

But he got an introduction from somebody who's a familiar face around Raymond James Stadium, former Bucs star Mike Alstott.

Alstott, known as a supporter of GOP candidates, was recruited by St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker to be involved in the rally, McCain campaign aides said.

In his last 24 hours of campaigning before Election Day, McCain included two stops in Florida: Sunday night's rally in Miami and the Raymond James event.

He hit the same campaign themes he's been hitting for weeks, with lines from his standard stump speech on offshore drilling, Joe the Plumber, Barack Obama the "redistributionist" who wants to "spread the wealth around," cutting taxes and vetoing earmarks.

The point of the speech wasn't to give the crowd new information, however. It was to stir up both attendees and supporters watching on television in the largest media market, the Tampa Bay area, in a state he must win to become president.

McCain sought to inoculate them against polls and projections that show Obama with an Electoral College majority.

That majority has shrunk in the past few days, however, with states including Virginia and Ohio moving to the "tossup" category according to some pollsters, and the margin tightening in Obama-leaning states including Pennsylvania.

In Florida, which has seesawed for two months with neither candidate ever building a convincing lead, several polls over the past three days have shown Obama with leads of about two points, less than the error margin and a likely tossup.

That gave McCain some ammunition when he told the crowd, "Don't give up hope, be strong. Stand up and fight ... Nothing is inevitable here. We never give up; we never quit."

The crowd, however, was smaller than he or campaign organizers would have liked it to be, about 1,200, according to Tampa police officers counting those arriving.

Some observers compared it unfavorably with the 15,000 President Bush drew to a rally across Dale Mabry Highway at Steinbrenner Field on the Sunday before the 2004 election.

The McCain campaign planned Monday's event in less than 36 hours, organizers said - not enough time to recruit or plan for a major event, particularly considering McCain's frenetic schedule for the rest of the day.

Organizers had hoped for about 1,500, one local GOP insider said.

Reporter William March can be reached at 813-259-7761.

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