McCain to Campaign In All 48 States

Presumptive Republican Presidential candidate John McCain told a hastily assembled Phoenix news conference that he will campaign “in all 48 states, from sea to shining sea of this beautiful nation of ours.”

McCain said that he will use the latest in railroad technology to create a “Whistlestop Campaign” reminiscent of President Harry Truman’s.

The “Fast Talk Express,” as the train will be called, will permit the candidate to stop and speak to clumps of voters “wherever they may be found in this great nation of ours,” the candidate said.

McCain expects to be accompanied on the Fast Talk Express by his Vice Presidential running mate and told reporters that he had narrowed the choice down to two men: the late Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona and the late Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York.

“Both men bring experience, gravitas, and a track record of success,” McCain enthused to reporters. “The hardest part of my job is choosing one of these great Americans over the other.”

McCain said that his 48-state strategy meant that “every State in this fantastic nation of ours” will be “in play in November,” including many of the states that “Adlai Stevenson carried in the recent 1956 Presidential election.”

“We will take this campaign wherever train tracks will carry us,” McCain said. “From unpolluted sea to untainted-by-oil-exploration sea, in this greatest nation on God’s green earth. And if you’d like to make a contribution to our campaign, to help us pay for coal and Pullman workers, we’ll even send you by return mail a free three-cent stamp.”