Forget about a McCain-Ridge ticket?
Posted: Monday, August 11, 2008 1:35 PM by Mark Murray
From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy
ERIE, PA -- It looks like a McCain-Ridge ticket may no longer be a possibility.
After visiting a GE locomotive plant here today with Tom Ridge, the state's former governor, McCain took questions from some of the plant's employees -- one of which was about what his plans were for his first 90 days in office.
"To call Tom Ridge to Washington from whatever vacation he is taking and get him down there and get him to work," McCain joked, subtly suggesting that Ridge wouldn't be his running mate in November.
For the first time in recent memory, McCain avoided all talk of Obama during his remarks today, instead focusing on the need for more green technology like the hybrid train engines being developed in Erie by General Electric, the parent company of NBC. Yet he did allude to his opponent's months-old "bitter" comment about small-town Pennsylvanian voters.
"You're going to be seeing a lot of me in this state, and we're gonna be on the bus, and we're gonna go from town to town, and we're gonna tell people that we know that they love the Second Amendment and cherish their religion because they believe in America. Because they believe in the strength and the greatness of America," McCain said.
McCain also used two of his opponent's buzzwords today, saying that while some people are despondent about the economic situation in America, "I have hope. Right now Americans want some hope."
And while criticizing some people, including Obama, for saying "we can't" to many of McCain's energy proposals, McCain says (yes) "we can."
"I'm tired of hearing people -- aren't you? -- saying we can't," McCain said. "We can't reprocess spent nuclear fuel. We can't store spent nuclear fuel. We can't compete with other countries. We can't develop clean coal technology. We can. That's what America's -- that's the history of the United States of America. We can and we will and sometimes it requires government assistance."
