While Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battle for their party's presidential nomination, McCain will spend the week in economically struggling places where Republican candidates do not normally go.
The Arizona senator begins his tour with a speech at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where armed Alabama police attacked more than 500 civil rights demonstrators on March 7, 1965, a day known as "Bloody Sunday."
His trip will take him from the rural "Black Belt" of Alabama, to the hard-hit steel town of Youngstown, Ohio, the Appalachia region of Kentucky, and hurricane-stricken New Orleans.
In his speech, McCain will speak highly of Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis -- an Obama supporter -- who took part in the Selma march and was beaten by police.
"John Lewis took the first blow, a baton thrust to the stomach that shoved him back on the marchers behind him. He took the second blow, too, a hard swung club to his head, leaving a permanent scar where it struck," McCain will say in his speech, according to excerpts released by his campaign.
His point will be that Americans can overcome whatever challenges face them.
"There must be no forgotten places in America, whether they have been ignored for long years by the sins of indifference and injustice, or have been left behind as the world grew smaller and more economically interdependent," he will say.
At a time when "change" is a watchword in the Democrats' argument that they should take over the White House after eight years of Republican President George W. Bush, McCain will say change is needed but not the kind that the Democrats offer.
"The time for pandering and false promises is over. It is time for action. It is time for change; the right kind of change," he will say. He will argue for limits on the federal government, rather than "policies that empower government to make our choices for us."
McCain's trip is part of a bid to attract more independent voters who could be crucial in the November election.
Soon after arriving on Sunday, McCain was at a restaurant in downtown Selma, tucking into a dinner of fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes and gravy.
He was there to meet members of "The Tuesday Group," a racially mixed group that gathers once a month for drinks and dinner.
At the same time, his campaign was fighting back against an article in The Washington Post that reported various instances in which McCain was said to have lost his temper.
McCain adviser Mark Salter said the story was "99 percent fiction."
"He argues, sometimes heatedly, with his peers, but he doesn't hold grudges or pick on people subordinate to him," Salter said in an email released by the McCain campaign.
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WashingtonPost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/21/AR2008042100596.html
