McCain says spending much time on VP choice

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Friday he was spending a lot of time working on his choice for a vice presidential running mate but was not close to making a decision.

Speaking to reporters on his Straight Talk Express bus, McCain said the search was "not very far" along and he would make an announcement about his running mate "at the appropriate time."

"I've spent a lot of time on it," McCain said in a rolling back-and-forth with reporters that began after he ate about half-a-dozen boiled shrimp from a Styrofoam bowl and described it as both breakfast and lunch.

He said his choice would be someone who shared his principles, values and goals and was qualified to take his place.

McCain gave no clue who was being considered. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whom McCain defeated in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist are among a host of possibilities.

McCain is expected to make up his mind some time before the Republican nominating convention in early September in St. Paul, Minnesota. He said he was not necessarily looking for someone who could help him win a state or a region.

"President (Bill) Clinton and Vice President (Al) Gore showed that that is not as important a factor as it once was," said McCain, referring to the two Southerners whose ticket twice won election to the White House in the 1990s.

McCain also said he felt no need to wait to see who Democrat Barack Obama picked as his running mate for the November presidential election before making his own choice. "I don't think that should drive us," he said.

The Arizona senator quipped he had been getting a lot of advice about potential running mates.

At a town-hall meeting on Thursday in Cincinnati, one member of the audience recommended Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, while another tossed out the name of Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe.

OPINION POLLS

"I've had literally everybody recommended to me that I've ever heard of, and some I haven't," he said.

McCain said he was not worried about his position in opinion polls, which give Obama a lead of varying sizes.

"I prefer the underdog status, to be honest with you. It motivates me and it motivates our people," he said.

He said he did not think many Americans had yet reached a decision on who should succeed President George W. Bush and that they would start to focus on it during the autumn.

McCain was in Ohio to raise money for his campaign and to talk about ways to boost the struggling U.S. economy.

In Warren, at a General Motors plan, he said he would oppose a government bailout of the ailing auto industry and voiced strong support for free trade in the hard-hit state of Ohio.

Ohio's economy lags well behind much of the country, with an unemployment rate of 6.3 percent in May, above the national average of 5.5 percent. Some 238,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost since Bush took office.

"America is hurting now," McCain said. But he said the future of the auto industry was in building high-mileage vehicles. "It's going to be hard, it's going to be long and it's going to be tough."

U.S. automakers General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC are struggling with sharp sales declines and painful restructurings that have resulted in plant closings and thousands of job losses, especially in economically pressed Michigan.

McCain, speaking to reporters after the town-hall meeting, said he supported putting government dollars into research and development of batteries and other sources of energy for the next generation of automobiles.

But he said he was against an overall industry bailout.

"I'm afraid not," he said. "A bailout, I don't think works."

(Additional reporting by John Crawley and Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Peter Cooney)

(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)