Youngstown, Iowa:

The latest Gallup poll shows President Bush’s job approval has a hit a new low – 69 percent disapprove, the highest disapproval that Gallup has ever registered for any President, including Richard Nixon.
A tough environment for John McCain who acknowledged in Youngstown Ohio that all the attention to the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania has him just a wee bit overshadowed:

“It’s a big news day in politics, with the Pennsylvania primary and all. And I’ve been left recently in the unfamiliar position of facing no opposition within my own party. As you might recall, it was a different story last year, when I could claim the unqualified support of Cindy and my mother — and Mom was starting to keep her options open. Back then, there were some very impressive frontrunners … there was a very formidable second tier of contenders … and then there was me. As I recall, a few pollsters even declared my campaign a hopeless cause, and there was no margin of error to soften the blow.

But a person learns along the way that if you hold on — if you don’t quit no matter what the odds — sometimes life will surprise you. Sometimes you get a second chance, and opportunity turns back your way. And when it does, we are stronger and readier because of all that we had to overcome.

I bring up all this because the men and women of Youngstown know what it feels like to be counted out. You’ve been written off a few times yourselves, in the competition of the market. You know how it feels to hear that good things are happening in the American economy — they’re just not happening to you.”

Youngstown has been plagued by steel industry job losses and home mortgage foreclosures are the worst in the nation.

McCain called for aggressive job retraining programs & proposed reforming the unemployment system by creating new buffer accounts for each worker using unemployment insurance taxes in case of a sudden job loss.

McCain says tax cuts, less regulation, free trade and investment in new green technologies in the new economy will be a big part of the solution.

Per usual McCain blasted democrats Hillary Clintoin and Barack Obama as out of touch for wanting to raise taxes and curb free trade during a recession, which McCain says proves they don’t understand history or economics.