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McCain Rally Blasts Media, 'Feminist Left'

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The Associated Press

Published: October 21, 2008

ST. CHARLES, Mo. - Republican John McCain and his supporters on Monday branded Democrat Barack Obama a liberal and criticized feminists and the media as they rallied their conservative base in Missouri, a hotly contested bellwether state, two weeks before the election.

In a stump speech sharpened for the second week in a row, the GOP presidential candidate defended his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, against attacks from the "feminist left." Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., also introduced McCain by declaring him under siege by the "liberal elite media."

"John's been there and he's met a little tougher people in his life than the liberal media," Graham said in an allusion to McCain's years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Taking aim at Obama, Graham implored the crowd: "Show us that you understand and see a liberal when he's standing out there in front of you. Make sure you show America that it does matter that you keep your word if you're president of the United States."

The sharper remarks and tone came as McCain appeared before a weekday crowd of 2,000 in this suburb north of St. Louis, where Obama drew 100,000 on Saturday.

The Arizona senator focused on the economy, and roused the crowd when he reprised a line from the final presidential debate, during which he broke with his fellow Republican, President Bush.

"We can't spend the next four years as we have spent much of the last eight: waiting for our luck to change," McCain said in an amphitheater at New Town, a planned community freshly built in a former field.

"We have to act immediately. And as I said it at the last debate: I'm not George Bush; if Sen. Obama wanted to run against George Bush, he should have run for president four years ago. We need a new direction now. And we have to fight for it," McCain said.

St. Charles County is fertile electoral ground for the McCain campaign. In 2004, Bush beat Democrat John Kerry there by a margin of 59 percent to 41 percent.

Bush captured the state in 2000 and 2004, winning 53 percent statewide against Kerry. This year the polls show a very close race in Missouri, which since 1900 has voted for the presidential winner every year except 1956, when it picked Adlai Stevenson.

Among those accompanying McCain was former Sen. John Danforth, a widely popular ordained Episcopal priest.

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