Plainville, NY:

Senator John McCain in his first interview after the third and final presidential debate against Barack Obama tells FOX NEWS Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron that the democratic nominee is conducting “class warfare.”  McCain breaks with President Bush, his own campaign, and Fla Governor Charlie Crist on a host of issues.  McCain steps up his attacks on Obama for Bill Ayers and ACORN and defends his assertion that he is the underdog and that’s his preferred position. 19 days and counting.

Watch the interview here….

St. Louis, Missouri:

One day after Gov. Sarah Palin went toe to toe with Joe Biden in the only Vice Presidential debate, she sat down with Carl Cameron to talk about her previous interviews with Charles Gibson and Katie Couric, the financial bailout and her desire to continue to campaign in Michigan despite the McCain campaign’s decision to pull out.

Watch Special Report with Brit Hume for Carl’s complete take on today’s interview with the Govonor of Alaska.

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.

Pittsburgh, PA:
John McCain makes a populist economic pitch and offers some relief today at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

The gas tax holiday is part of the short term economic stimulus plan, he will push in Congress as a senator this year, but he has long term plans for his presidency too.

“I will send to Congress a reform to increase the exemption – with the goal of doubling it from 3,500 dollars to 7,000 dollars for every dependent, in every family in America”.

McCain would eliminate the alternative minimum tax entirely.

“I will also send to the Congress a middle-class tax cut – a complete phase-out of the Alternative Minimum Tax to save more than 25 million middle-class families more than 2,000 dollars every year.”

There is help on the way for small businesses too:

“I will send to Congress a proposal to cut the taxes these employers pay, from a rate of 35 to 25 percent”.

Young people can look forward to changes in the student loan program designed to make college more affordable.

To pay for it all McCain would freeze non-military & veteran discretionary spending and begin a “prompt and thorough review” of the budgets of every federal program, department and agency. McCain says it will save $100 billion a year.

He’d reform the Medicare Rx drug benefit by charging more to wealthier patients.

“Those who can afford to buy their own prescription drugs should be expected to do so.”
He’d form a Bipartisan commission on reforming social security and medicare and says all options including privatization are on the table.

He hit both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s plans to let the Bush tax cuts expire which he says would amount to the biggest tax hike since the Great Depression.

” All these tax increases are the fine print under the slogan of “hope”: They’re going to raise your taxes by thousands of $s per year – & they have the audacity to hope you don’t mind”.

He slammed both Democrats for opposing free trade and the Columbian Free Trade Agreement

“We can compete with anyone. Senators Obama and Clinton think we should hide behind walls, bury our heads and industries in the sand, and hope we have enough left to live on while the world passes us by”

But he also criticizes the GOP for congressional pork barrel spending and President Bush for not using his veto pen enough.

“For Republicans, it starts with reclaiming our good name as the party of spending restraint. Somewhere along the way, too many Republicans in Congress became indistinguishable from the big-spending Democrats they used to oppose. The only power of government that could stop them was the power of veto, and it was rarely used.”

More to come as Tax Day 2008 unfolds.