McCain to Florida: Drill Baby, Drill

Campaigning in Florida on Wednesday, Senator John McCain promised Floridians that he would allow more offshore drilling as president. Additionally, McCain said, he would make sure that more oil revenues would go back to the coastal states.

Although he would not force any state to drill in its coastal waters, McCain said he would give them incentives which would make it financially more attractive for them to start drilling.

“We will drill offshore, and we will drill now,” the Republican presidential candidate told a rally in Miami’s Little Havana. “If we’re going to drill off the state of Florida, you deserve more of those revenues. They shouldn’t be sent to Washington, they should be sent to Tallahassee.”

McCain also criticized Barack Obama on the economy and taxes. “Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden ought to understand: Raising taxes makes a bad economy worse,” McCain said.

“He can’t do that without raising your taxes or digging us further into debt,” McCain added referring to Obama’s big plans which will cost the American taxpayers many billions – even trillions – of dollars.

The Maverick Senator went to Florida because it is one of the key battleground states in this year’s election. It is an absolute must win for McCain. Obama can afford to lose it, McCain cannot.

He admitted as much when he said: “We’ve got to bring Florida home in our victory column, there’s less than a week to go and we’re a few points down.”

For the first time in months, one gets the impression that McCain has finally found his voice. It took the Republican nominee a long time to articulate a clear message, but he seems to have done so with little less than a week of campaigning remaining.