John Mccain Figured He would have a tough time getting attention last week. The superstar images of Barack Obama's overseas tour were made for TV. So McCain's people set up their own Hollywood shot: the candidate would chopper over the Gulf of Mexico to an oil rig off the Louisiana coast, where, flanked by men and machinery, he would give a speech promoting offshore oil drilling to ease gas prices. "We won't catch Obama on pictures this week," admitted one McCain adviser who asked not to be named talking about strategy. "But we can at least try and stay in the game." It wasn't meant to be. Less than an hour after announcing the photo op, the campaign abruptly canceled, citing Hurricane Dolly, which was swirling near the Texas coast. Worse, a runaway barge along the Mississippi River had rammed into a 600-foot oil tanker that morning, leaving a 12-mile-long oil slick that blanketed New Orleans in diesel fumes.
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