DaytonDailyNews.com

LIMA — The old John McCain showed up here in this Republican stronghold, the candidate who sometimes sounds as if he's running against his own party.

"I don't work for a party. I don't work for a president. I don't work for a special interest," McCain said to frequent applause before about 1,400 participants in a town hall meeting at the Veterans' Memorial Civic and Convention Center. "I don't work for myself. I work for you and the country we love."

It was a reprise from McCain's unsuccessful 2000 quest for the Republican presidential nomination as he cast himself this time as the independent-minded underdog against Democrat Barack Obama, the Illinois senator, in this year's race for the White House.

U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, introduced McCain, who was accompanied by his wife Cindy.

McCain tried to distance himself from Obama, the Democratically-controlled Congress and Republican President George W. Bush.

"Yesterday he (Obama) accused me of having President Bush's policies on energy... Sen. Obama voted for that (Bush's) bill and its big oil giveaways," said McCain. "I know he hasn't been in the Senate that long, but even in the real world, voting for something means you support it and voting against something means you oppose it."

Isaac Baker, Obama's spokesman, lashed back. "The facts speak for themselves. John McCain voted with George Bush 95 percent of the time and has proposed $4 billion in additional tax giveaways to big oil," said Baker. "Sen. Obama has a serious plan to end our dependence on foreign oil by investing in a range of alternative energies that will boost Ohio's economy and create good-paying new jobs."

McCain said if he were president he'd call Congress back from its five-week recess and not let members go until they came up with an energy plan to reduce America's independence on foreign oil. He pushed for offshore oil drilling, clean coal technology, nuclear power and alternatives such as wind and solar.

Aboard his "Straight Talk Express" bus on the way from Marion to Lima, McCain even mixed it up long distance with Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones. Jones, a fellow Republican, criticized McCain in a half-page newspaper ad on Thursday for not speaking out against illegal immigration.

"I know he's a very busy man," McCain said of Jones. "He ought to tune into C-SPAN" to hear what McCain's been saying about immigration.

At the town hall meeting, McCain said his top priority for reforming immigration is to secure the borders. A guest worker program also is needed and there must be a "compassionate and humane" solution for dealing with the illegal immigrants already here, he said.