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McCain will inspect flooding in Eastern Iowa

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By Ed Tibbetts | Wednesday, June 18, 2008 |

John McCain receives an update while arriving Wednesday in Chicago. (AP PHOTO)

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain plans to visit flood-ravaged eastern Iowa on Thursday, the campaign said tonight.

“John McCain wanted to visit with some of those affected,” said Jeff Sadosky, a campaign spokesman.

He could not say where McCain, an Arizona senator, will go, but CBS News and the Wall Street Journal have reported on their Web sites that he’ll visit Columbus Junction, which is south of the Quad-Cities in Louisa County.

Sadosky said logistics of the late morning visit are still being worked out. But he said McCain would not be traveling with President Bush, who also will be in the state the same day to tour flood-affected areas. The White House said the president would be in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City.

McCain’s visit here will be his second to the state since he clinched the nomination. He was in Des Moines last month.

The presumptive Democratic nominee, Barack Obama, an Illinois senator, had planned to visit Cedar Rapids last week, but he called the trip off in the face of flooding there.

Iowa is expected to be a closely contested state in the 2008 election.

McCain had been planning a trip to Minnesota on Thursday, according to news reports, but is heading to Iowa instead.

Southeast Iowa has been the site of intense flood activity the last several days, as residents and public officials struggle to ensure that levees hold up against the surging Mississippi River, whose crest is making its way through Iowa and into Missouri.

Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.