McCain visits "war on poverty" Kentucky coal town

By Steve Holland

INEZ, Kentucky (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said on Wednesday Americans face a tough economic outlook with high gasoline prices likely to remain and his Democratic opponents would make matters worse.

McCain visited the tiny Kentucky coal town of Inez 44 years after President Lyndon Johnson stood on a front porch here and declared a "war on poverty" that McCain said failed because of excessive government bureaucracy.

McCain was driven through the mountains to that woodframe house Johnson visited but now it was padlocked with the front porch fenced off, a "No Trespassing" sign posted and car parked in a driveway with a blanket covering a broken window.

McCain said the home was "significant and symbolic that we have a lot to do." Inez City Commissioner Eric Mills, a McCain supporter travelling with reporters, was disappointed McCain went there since economic progress has been made in the area.

"The war on poverty is in our past," he said.

Speaking earlier to a packed crowd in the Martin County Courthouse, McCain gave an unvarnished view of the U.S. economy, saying he believed it was already in recession regardless of whether the technical definition of a recession has been reached.

"Let's start out with acceptance of the fact that action has to be taken," McCain said.

A day after Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania Democratic contest, assuring a longer battle against rival Barack Obama for the party's presidential nomination, McCain told reporters he was not sure whether the extended campaign was helping or hurting him, saying he had heard arguments from both sides.