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McCain plans trips to promote guest worker bill, 2008 campaign
Mike Sunnucks
The Business Journal
Arizona Sen. John McCain has upcoming trips to Florida to tout immigration reforms and Tennessee to promote a possible presidential bid to Republican partisans.

McCain will be in Miami on Thursday and will promote a business-backed guest worker program and other immigration reforms. The Arizona senator will speak at "town hall" meeting in South Florida sponsored by the New American Opportunity Campaign. That group includes labor unions, business interests, Hispanic groups and other supporters of guest worker program.

McCain and East Valley Congressman Jeff Flake are among the backers of a federal plan to create a guest worker program for immigrant workers and allow illegals already in the U.S. to apply for legal status after paying a $2,000 fine and undergoing criminal and medical background checks.

The idea has the backing of the U.S. and Arizona chambers of commerce, but is opposed by some conservative immigration hawks.

McCain will also help raise campaign funds for two Miami-area GOP congressmen during his time in Florida.

In early March, McCain will be in Memphis attending the Southern Republican Leadership Conference. That event will feature a number of possible 2008 presidential candidates, including McCain, U.S. Sen. George Allen, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Govs. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Mike Huckabee of Arkansas.

McCain has been hitting Southern states in earnest as he mulls another run for the White House. In 2000, George W. Bush trounced McCain in South Carolina and other Southern battlegrounds in the GOP presidential primaries.

McCain is a top GOP contender in the 2008 presidential tilt. Leading Democratic candidates include Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and U.S. Sens. Joseph Biden, Evan Bayh, John Kerry and Hillary Rodham Clinton.