McCain visiting poor areas

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain spends this week visiting economically struggling areas of the United States to show Americans he is a different kind of Republican.

McCain's trip is part of a bid to attract more independent voters who could be crucial in the November election, taking advantage of the tense battle for the Democratic nomination between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

McCain, an Arizona senator, will travel to the "Black Belt" of Alabama, the Appalachia region of Kentucky, the hard-hit steel town of Youngstown, Ohio, and Hurricane Katrina-stricken New Orleans, reaching out to poorer areas where Republican candidates often do not go looking for votes.

"We will travel to areas of this country that in many ways have been forgotten and left behind," said senior McCain adviser Steve Schmidt.

McCain will listen to people's concerns and offer recommendations on what government can do to lift people up or loosen excessive government bureaucracy.

Schmidt said McCain would say if elected, "Places that have been overlooked will not be overlooked any more."

He starts out on Monday with remarks at a historic site in the U.S. civil rights movement -- the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where demonstrators in 1965 were attacked by police with clubs and tear gas.

Since locking up his party's presidential nomination in March, McCain has not received as many headlines as his Democratic rivals. He has used the time to raise money and attempt to bring skeptical conservatives behind him.