Sen. John McCain launched his week-long journey to poverty-stricken areas of the nation Monday with language that would have been at home in any Democratic stump speech.
The likely intended audience is instead the nation's mostly white, mostly moderate independent voters who, according to polls, are less inclined than ever to vote for a typical GOP contender this year. So each of the forgotten places visited on this week's trip seems handpicked to reinforce one message: McCain is no typical Republican.
The Arizona senator will visit Democratic strongholds like New Orleans' hurricane-battered Lower 9th Ward, and other historically resonant locations like Inez, Kentucky, where President Lyndon Johnson launched his War on Poverty -- a campaign McCain's party has criticized for decades.
The approach isn't completely new. Eight years ago, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush ran as a compassionate conservative
Another challenge: While McCain's foreign policy credentials
clipped from: www.cnn.com 