McCain to visit Tri-state

HUNTINGTON -- John McCain will come to Huntington this morning to speak to the Marshall football team at Joan C. Edwards Stadium.

Few details were released about the presumed Republican presidential candidate's visit. Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, said it will not be open to the public and media coverage will be limited. McCain will board a bus after his visit with the team and make a campaign stop in Jackson, Ohio, she said.

Because of a limited schedule and various logistical concerns, "it's hard to put together an event that's open to the public as well as for the football team," she said. "We anticipate a different event setting the next time he comes to West Virginia."

McCain arrived in Huntington on Tuesday evening and a large number of vehicles and a McCain bus were parked downtown on 10th Street and 3rd Avenue.

This will be McCain's third trip to West Virginia this year. Previous stops included a visit to a St. Albans gun shop in May and a brief stop at Tri-State Airport in July en route to a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, Ohio.

Even though polls show the Arizona senator with a large early lead over Democratic rival Sen. Barack Obama in West Virginia, McCain is likely to make several stops in the state before November's general election, said Larry Swann, McCain's West Virginia campaign chairman.

"That in itself indicates that he believes West Virginia is vital to the campaign come November," Swann told reporters during a conference call Tuesday afternoon. "He has adopted as part of his national energy policy an approach that realizes coal and the development of clean coal technology. He understands coal is a vital part of West Virginia's economy."

McCain chose Marshall as the backdrop for his visit because he views it as an integral part of the region, Swann said.

"Any time you get a national figure coming in here, it is very, very exciting for our student athletes," Marshall Head Football Coach Mark Snyder said.

"We obviously would welcome Senator Obama, too," Snyder said. "Any time you get a national figure ... a movie star, athlete, politician, someone of national stature to talk to your young people, that's a heck of a thing."

The West Virginia Democratic Party distributed a news release on Tuesday afternoon saying that they would protest McCain's visit at 10:15 a.m. today at the corner of 3rd Avenue and 20th Street.

Reporter Chuck Landon contributed to this report.