US:THE HIGH school gym at Portsmouth, on the banks of the Ohio River, was already full an hour before John McCain's town hall meeting was due to start and the choir was belting out patriotic favourites like God Bless America and the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
Earlier, a colour party from the local American Legion had trooped in and the all-white crowd sang the national anthem and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
If Barack Obama's networked, tech-savvy presidential bid is the first 21st century American campaign, Mr McCain's events could be modelled on campaign stops from the 1950s.
In this conservative corner of Appalachian Ohio, however, the Republican's old-fashioned approach might be just the ticket, as former US trade representative Rob Portman suggested before Mr McCain came onstage.
"He's a straight-talking, common sense conservative for a straight-talking, common sense state," Mr Portman said.
A struggling town where one in four residents lives below the poverty line, Portsmouth has seen much of its industry disappear since the 1970s and local economic hopes are pinned on the expansion of a nearby uranium enrichment plant.
Nobody has won the White House without winning Ohio since 1960, and he has put the state, along with Pennsylvania and Michigan, at the centre of his strategy for winning in November.
A poor orator who struggles with a teleprompter, Mr McCain is no match for Mr Obama in big, set-piece speeches, but he thrives in the town hall setting, enjoying the banter and unlike his Democratic opponent, welcoming hostile questions.
Mr McCain's plan to build 45 new nuclear power stations is popular in Portsmouth, but he took his first question from Joni Fearing, who carried a "No Nukes" sign and said her father's job at the local nuclear plant had contributed to both of her parents' early deaths from cancer.
"We've done this for 50 years and we deserve better," she said. "We don't want our young people to continue working in a highly toxic industry. I know a lot of people here probably feel the same way but are afraid to say anything."
Mr McCain expressed his sympathy for her parents' deaths and asked Fearing to send him any information she had on health risks at the local plant. But he insisted that nuclear power was safe, pointing out that as a former member of the US navy, he had sailed around the world in nuclear vessels.
"Thank you for being here and thank you for participating in what I think is an important part of our process," he said.
Mr McCain was equally warm when a woman broke down as she spoke of the imminent loss of 8,600 jobs in her small town because a big company has decided to move out. "We're just small people trying to live a life," she said.
She wanted Mr McCain to investigate whether the company had broken anti-trust laws and to do something to prevent the closure, but he offered little comfort. "I don't know if I can stop it or if it can be stopped. In fact, I doubt it," he said.
In fact, Mr McCain had little to offer in terms of solutions to many of the problems faced by voters in Ohio, which has been hit hard by the economic downturn.
But that may have been beside the point, as the town hall meeting served, above all, to showcase the Republican candidate as a man of courage and integrity who can be relied on to tell the unvarnished truth.
"In war and peace, I have been an imperfect servant of my country, but I have been her servant first, last and always," he said.