As Sen. John McCain’s Democratic rivals slug it out with no end in sight, the Republican presidential nominee is carefully laying plans to stay in the headlines -- from an official foreign trip next week to a biographical campaign tour across America to a swing through economically disadvantaged areas and minority communities.

McCain is traveling to Iraq, Israel, London and Paris with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), colleagues on the Armed Services Committee who are also staunch campaign supporters.

The trio will meet with King Abdullah in Amman, Jordan; Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem; British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London; and French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris.

On March 26, shortly after his return, McCain will give a speech on foreign policy and national security to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council.


McCain has stressed that it will be a routine Senate trip focused on military and security issues and that he will not discuss presidential politics during his travels.

The campaign, however, will hold a luncheon fundraiser for McCain at London’s Spencer House on Thursday.

Republican strategist Dan Schnur, a McCain aide in 2000 who hasn’t been affiliated with a presidential campaign this year, said that the Arizona senator’s travels “might not get as much attention as Democrats saying mean things about each other, but it’s an opportunity to steer the conversation in a direction that’s going to benefit him in the fall.”

“The same issues that cause him such difficulties with conservative voters give him a real opportunity to reach out across party lines. . . . He’s got an opportunity to talk to these voters without competition from a Democratic nominee,” Schnur said. “It’s rare that a candidate has such a clear field to do this.”


Later this month, McCain plans to launch a “Service to America” tour tracing the roots of his military service and political career.

Though details are still being worked out by the campaign, McCain is expected to stop in Mississippi’s Carroll County, where his great-grandfather was a sheriff and his grandfather was raised on the family’s plantation, as well as Meridian, Miss., where McCain was stationed as a flight instructor.

McCain’s advisors say he also is likely to make stops at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.; in Pensacola, Fla., where he attended flight school; and in the Jacksonville, Fla., area, where his family awaited his return after he was captured and held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.

One of McCain’s supporters noted during a campaign event Friday that today is the 35th anniversary of his release.


The tour is also expected to introduce voters to the origins of McCain’s political career in Arizona, where he first ran for Congress in 1982, and may include a trip to the Grand Canyon, where McCain hiked with his son two summers ago.

“It’s about visiting places that helped shape his life, his values and his commitment to national service,” McCain’s advisor Charles Black said.

Later this year, McCain’s advisors say, he will shift the spotlight to domestic and economic policy while reaching out to voters beyond the traditional Republican constituency -- holding town halls in inner cities, African American and Latino communities, and economically disadvantaged areas like Appalachia.

“He’s not going to pop around doing airport rallies. . . . He likes to campaign in a conversation with the American people,” McCain aide Mark Salter said. “He’s going to make his case for his candidacy.”


The weeklong overseas trip marks McCain’s first break from the campaign trail in many months. After clinching the Republican nomination March 4 with victories in Ohio and Texas, McCain scaled back his campaign schedule -- to one public event a day usually -- while holding as many as two fundraisers a day.

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maeve.reston@latimes.com