Campaign Trail

The great outdoors

• Matthew Price
• 20 Oct 08, 06:08 PM GMT

We have just arrived in Belton, Missouri, on yet another beautiful sunny autumn day.

For the first time on this trip of ours, John McCain is going to address a crowd outdoors.

It is a bold move. His crowds have been significantly smaller than Barack Obama's - and this is just days after Mr Obama held two huge rallies in this state (an estimated 100,000 in St Louis and then just up the road in Kansas City an estimated 75,000).

Mr McCain will not get anywhere close to that.

I imagine, however, that he will be bringing messages about plumbers called Joe and socialists called Obama (he may not use the 'S' word but that is what the crowd will take away from it).