Posted: 10/20/2008 3:08:59 AM EDT
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GOP leaders rally for McCain in Roanoke A half-dozen McCain supporters attended the event at a local towing garage. www.roanoke.com/politics/wb/180904 By Pete Dybdahl 981-3376 Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times Del. William Fralin, state Sen. Ralph Smith and Del. Morgan Griffith get ready to speak in support of John McCain at Robert Young's Towing in Roanoke. Ohio has Joe the Plumber. Roanoke has Joe the Mechanic. Joe Hofmann, that is. Friday afternoon, he stood in Robert Young's Towing business on Carver Avenue Northeast, where Roanoke Valley Republican legislators pitched Sen. John McCain as a friend to small business in a brief rebuttal to Sen. Barack Obama's appearance in town. "How is business going to thrive in the future with Barack Obama, Chicago politics?" asked state Sen. Ralph Smith of Botetourt County, who threw in the name of gangster Al Capone for good measure. "I don't think that's what Southwest Virginia wants." State delegates William Fralin of Roanoke and Morgan Griffith of Salem followed Smith at the garage's battery load tester, which doubled as a podium. Each man offered McCain as the better choice for ambitious, upwardly mobile Americans. "You're going to bust your tail so your children can have a better life," Griffith said. "Obama's plan undercuts that dream." The garage served as a reminder of Smith's own rise from mechanic to politician -- an effort that would have been discouraged by Obama's "spread the wealth attitude," Smith said. Smith, Fralin and Griffith each mentioned the plumber of the political hour, Ohio's Joe Wurzelbacher now made famous by Wednesday's presidential debate, as a symbol "that in this country you can do better," Fralin said. A half-dozen McCain supporters also arrived for the event, titled "Joe the Plumber vs. Senator Government." Said Hofmann of the presidential race: "It's a hard choice," though the mechanic, who has worked 20 years in the garage, said he is impressed with McCain's military background and is leaning toward the Republican candidate. Another McCain supporter echoed the afternoon's message. "We work very hard to try to make a living for our family," said Danny Goad of Botetourt County. "We see that being threatened by taking wealth and redistributing it to those who haven't worked for it." There was more uncertainty about Obama along Williamson Road. Before the Democratic nominee spoke at the Roanoke Civic Center, about a dozen people filled the median along the busy Roanoke thoroughfare, some waving McCain-Palin signs and others that read "Stop killing babies" and "Abortion kills." That protest was repeated in the civic center's parking lot, where a box truck displayed anti-abortion images. Several speechgoers snapped photos of it as they filed past. |