YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO — When John McCain went to Michigan on the eve of its January primary and told voters that the state's lost jobs were not coming back, many political experts thought he had made a huge mistake. Particularly after he was trounced by Mitt Romney, who pledged to rebuild the state's auto industry.
But McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee for president, delivered a similar economic message again to voters Tuesday in struggling Youngstown. And he praised the North American Free Trade Agreement, in an area where it is enormously unpopular.
"This is a tough place," McCain said, standing, with his blue shirt-sleeves rolled up, by a closed metal-fabricating plant. "The answer to our problems is not the siren song of protectionism. Protectionism and isolationism has never worked."
McCain, while cautioning Ohioans, also was firing a barb at his Democratic rivals, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, who were battling for votes in Tuesday's primary in neighboring Pennsylvania.
Obama and Clinton say they want to renegotiate NAFTA to set stricter labor and environmental standards for trading partners, a change they contend will increase U.S. competitiveness. Clinton also has called for a moratorium on trade pacts until a new trade policy is set.
The keen interest in Ohio over trade was evident during McCain's town hall-style event later in the day at Youngstown State University. Sam Carbon, a 29-year-old student, asked McCain how he would stop "the cheap dumping of foreign goods" into the U.S. market and prevent companies from leaving places such as Youngstown and taking jobs overseas.
"I've got to give you some straight talk: I can't turn that around," McCain said. "I can't look you in the eye and tell you I believe those jobs are coming back. But I can tell you that I will commit myself to providing these workers who have lost their jobs with another chance, a second chance. They need it; they deserve it."
McCain highlighted one of his remedies: expanding job-training programs at community colleges. He said he could pay for that by consolidating existing federal job-training efforts that he considered ineffective.
The senator from Arizona also promised to crack down on trade violations. "I will renew and redouble my efforts to make sure that that level playing field is even," he said.
