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Details sketchy on McCain's visit to T'ville Monday
According to officials with the City of Thomasville, the candidate is slated to speak to students at Thomasville High School and at Alabama Southern Community College. A roundtable forum with local citizens at Alabama Southern has reportedly been canceled. The high school event is not open to the public. The ASCC event is open to the public, but space is very limited. Specific times of te events have not been released. McCain is also expected to visit an unnamed lumber mill while in the area, according to the campaign's Web site. McCain will first visit Selma and Gee's Bend Monday morning, and arrive in Thomasville about noon. Gee's Bend is the predominately black community in Wilcox County famous for its quilters. An Internet blog site, "The Brody File," by CBN Senior National Correspondent David Brody, has dubbed outreaches to places like Thomasville "the Compassion Tour." The plan, Brody says, is to reach out to evangelicals and a mixture of "old guard" and "new guard" figures. "...the bottom line here is that the McCain camp has no desire to start a dialogue with folks who want to beat up the senator over some of his views. They're looking for people who are open to listening to him, convinced that they will like what they hear. Don't expect the McCain team to set their sights just on national leaders." While churches and pastors will be targeted, "This tour isn't going to focus heavily on faith. They'll be some crossover on that but the idea here is to go to places where Republicans haven't gone before. "For example, McCain will travel to places like Thomasville, Ala., where nearly half the population is African-American. McCain will venture into the rustbelt when he visits Youngstown, Ohio [on Tuesday after Thomasville], a place devastated economically. "The Brody File understands he'll even be going to Spanish Harlem in New York City. Not your typical Republican strongholds." Thomasville Mayor Sheldon Day, a mayoral co-chairman of McCain's Alabama campaign has his own opinion on the Thmasville visit. Day said it "lends substance to what rural people think about the presidential race….It gives us an opportunity, once and for all, to express a rural view about issues of national implication. "…This may be the only opportunity in a lifetime to actually sit face to face with a presidential candidate and truly ask them about issues that face us," Day said. "…The sheer frenzy and media attention involved in a presidential campaign, naturally we (Thomasville) couldn't buy that kind of publicity for our community."
McCain will be in Birmingham and Homewood for fundraising events that evening. The Birmingham event is $1,000 per person and the Homewood reception, for young professionals, is $100 per person.
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