McCain defies age in final 22-hour sprint

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain may be 72 years old, but he's not ready for the rocking chair.

Working on three hours of sleep, McCain planned to hit seven states in 22 hours on Monday in a final cross-country sprint before Tuesday's election, a grueling schedule for a man who would be the oldest person to ever take office as president.

"He's got a lot of stamina; I don't know if I could do it. I think he's in great shape," said stay-at-home mother Christina Riley, 41, at an airport rally in Blountville, Tennessee.

Up at 5:30 a.m., McCain raced through his stump speech and confidently predicted victory at morning stops in Tampa, Florida, and Blountville, Tennessee. By the third stop outside Pittsburgh, he appeared positively ebullient -- or perhaps a bit punch drunk.

"Joe, Joe, Joe, Joe, thank you, Joe," McCain said as he introduced independent Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a close friend.

By the next stop in Indianapolis, he was sounding a little hoarse. But he seemed just as vigorous as at a midnight rally before an audience of 15,000 in Miami the night before.

"We've got to have all our rallies at this time of night, I'm telling you," he said there.

McCain still had stops planned in Roswell, New Mexico, and Henderson, Nevada, before a final rally in Prescott, Arizona.

Democrat Barack Obama, by contrast, had a relatively cushy 14-hour day planned. His first event in Jacksonville, Florida, started at 11 a.m., and after two more stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Manassas, Virginia, he planned to reach his Chicago home shortly after midnight.

McCain has joked about his age on "Saturday Night Live," but it is a real concern for some voters, especially compared to the 47-year-old, basketball-playing Obama.

A battle with skin cancer has left a prominent scar on his jaw, but medical records released in May gave him an essentially clean bill of health.

The presidency takes a visible toll on much younger men -- Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George W. Bush both accumulated plenty of white hair in office.

But at Monday's rallies, age didn't seem to be much of a concern.

"He looks like he's in really good health, plus it gives him wisdom," said 66-year-old Jean Soergel in Tennessee.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Caren Bohan, editing by Cynthia Osterman)