ALBUQUERQUE — Sen. John McCain and his Straight Talk Express ran slap dab into Lawrence Lovato on Tuesday.

Lovato, a military veteran, was one of several hundred New Mexicans to pack a ballroom at the Hotel Albuquerque to catch a glimpse of the Republican presidential candidate who was visiting the Land of Enchantment for the second time in two months. 

The Town Hall meeting, as the event was billed, was a pretty traditional campaign event with McCain opening with prepared remarks and then taking questions from the audience, many of which fell into familiar territory with the respect accorded a presidential nominee. Immigration. Economy. Oil dependence. Estate tax. Until Lovato’s question, that is.

"I’m halfway through my bachelor’s program and my GI bill is about to run out," Lovato told McCain. "I’ve been hearing third-hand information from CNN … and I want to hear from the Straight Talk Express, why did you not support the new GI bill and what assurances can you give me and all the other veterans of this country that you are going to give us your unending support," Lovato asked. 

 
McCain didn’t miss a beat as he thanked Lovato and tackled the question — sort of. 

McCain explained to the crowd that he had opposed the initial bill because of a provision calling for the transfer of educational credits to family members. It didn’t go far enough, he said, because the legislation didn’t allow the transfer to extend retroactively prior to Sept. 11, 2001. 

"I think it ought to be retroactive for everybody," McCain said. "If you talk to some of our senior enlisted people today, one of their challenges is not just their own educaiton, but how they are going to provide education to their family members, children, and their spouses." 

And then McCain moved on to other interlocutors.

Lovato admitted afterward McCain hadn’t answered his question, but the candidate’s skirting the question didn’t cost the Arizona senator a vote.

"He still has my support," Lovato said. "He’s pro-military, pro tax cuts and pro-life."

Tuesday’s Town Hall meeting came on the second day of McCain’s visit to New Mexico in which the GOP nominee is laying down a marker on the Land of Enchantment as a battleground state in the presidential contest. More than once McCain reminded Tuesday’s crowd of New Mexico’s importance in the presidential contest and even described an election night scenario in which the East Coast media types had to wait on results from little ol’ New Mexico.

"He obviously feels that this is a very competitive state for him," University of New Mexico political science professor Lonna Atkeson said Tuesday. "I wonder if there is stuff in his polling data that he may be able to bring over some Hispanic Democrats. That’s what I wonder."

Atkeson also said her understanding is that the veteran population is higher per capita in New Mexico than in many other states, and McCain may be playing on that fact. 

Reinforcing the importance of New Mexico, Tuesday’s event occurred only a few hours after the campaign had taken in between $500,000 and $1 million at an Albuquerque fundraiser, a source close to the campaign said. 

For the most part, Tuesday’s event went off without a hitch, but what is a presidential campaign event without a little protesting from the other side.

NARAL Pro-Choice New Mexico sent out a release saying that five pro-choice women were kept out of the event even though they had tickets. Hotel security escorted these pro-choice New Mexicans out of the town hall before the program even started, the release said.

"So it looks like it’s yet another day when we won’t get a straight answer from the ’straight talk express’ on where Sen. McCain stands on birth control," NARAL’s executive director Heather Brewer said. 

The McCain campaign said later that it had nothing to do with turning away the women who were clad in NARAL T-shirts.

 

"It wasn’t a campaign issue. It was an open, public event," McCain spokesperson Whitney Cheshire said.

The Town Hall meeting, like many presidential campaign events, was a highly orchestrated affair in which McCain occasionally displayed his well-known penchant for quick humor. There were other funny moments, as in when the announcer misidentified former GOP congressman Manuel Lujan as Ben Lujan — the Democratic Speaker of the House.

But for most of the hourlong event, it was serious business.

The roughly 20-minute speech McCain gave dwelt mostly on the Iraq war and the war in Afghanisatan and it was there that the Republican engaged in a little negative politicking at the expense of his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama. McCain took pains to try to frame Obama as a flip flopper on the "surge" strategy in Iraq. Some political analysts have predicted that McCain’s campaign might start trying to portray Obama as a waffler after he came under pressure from some corners for his positions on the federal government’s wiretapping program and on other controversial issues.

As for the war, McCain pointed out that he, and not Obama, had supported the surge strategy in Iraq and that the Democratic nominee had argued against it because it would not work. 

"He goes on to say today," McCain said of Obama, " ‘I had no doubt we would see a reduction in violence.’ Flip floppers all over the world are enraged," McCain quipped.

Obama campaign spokeswoman Shannon Gilson responded to the accusation Tuesday: 

 

Sen. Obama has frequently said that the surge could reduce violence—because of the extraordinary work of our men and women in uniform. But, the stated goal of the surge was to create breathing room to allow for political reconciliation. Senator Obama has been consistently critical that the surge has not achieved its stated goal.

In addition to tackling national issues, McCain touched on subjects much on some New Mexicans’ minds, like the role of New Mexico’s two national labs as some in Congress seek to reduce federal dollars going to the laboratories. 

McCain told the crowd that he saw the labs as incubators for tomorrow’s energy resources by conducting pure research and development. 

"I think … funding for pure research and development can help us with wind, tide, solar" energy, he said. "That is the job of government. I do not believe it is the role of government to build it, to market it. There’s a very key role that our labs will play.

He also touched on immigration, repeating his belief that the nation had to secure the border first and then "we have to have a temporary worker program."

There were no tough questions as to his stance on immigration, even though he acknowledged the unpopularity of his stance during last year’s immigration debate with some in his own party. Related to the immigration issue, McCain told the crowd is the issue of drug trafficking and the violence that follows it.

"It’s about drugs coming into this country .. so my friends that alone is why we have to have secure borders," he said.