McCain blasts Obama in his hometown

John McCain took his presidential campaign to Barack Obama's home turf with a vengeance Monday, labeling the Democratic front-runner reckless on national security.

The presumptive Republican nominee, reaching out to moderate, swing voters, blasted Obama for calling Iran's threat "tiny" compared to the former Soviet Union's.

"On the contrary, right now Iran provides some of the deadliest explosive devices used in Iraq to kill our soldiers," the former POW chided his potential opponent during a speech at the National Restaurant Association convention in downtown Chicago.

McCain was pouncing on comments Sunday in Oregon where Illinois' junior senator defended his willingness to negotiate with Iran.

"Iran, Cuba, Venezuela -- these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union," he said. "They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, 'We're going to wipe you off the planet.' "

Responding to McCain on Monday, Obama told a town hall rally in Billings, Mont., "Let me be absolutely clear: Iran is a grave threat."

But the Soviet Union posed an added threat, he said. "The Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear weapons," he said, "and Iran doesn't have one."

While McCain criticized Obama for national security, which McCain perceives to be one of his own strengths, McCain also attempted to portray himself as a conciliatory moderate Republican reselling conservatism to a nation disillusioned by President Bush.

McCain told several hundred restaurateurs that his plan for low taxes and loose regulation fit better with their business interests than Democratic principals.

"Your plans for growth and their plans for taxes are going to be hard to square," he said.

McCain was accompanied by supporter Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent from Connecticut who supports the Iraq war and was Al Gore's running mate in 2000.

McCain noted Lieberman's presence in the solidly Democratic city, home to Obama and former home to Hillary Clinton, by saying he had received a relatively "warm welcome." At that point a half dozen protesters wearing pink aprons stood and began shouting, "McCain is in the kitchen with George Bush cooking up another war."

Once the protesters were escorted out, about three-quarters of the audience gave the Arizona senator a standing ovation. Noticeably, the rest sat quietly. It was McCain's only standing ovation in the half-hour-plus speech, which was marked by polite applause and mostly silence during his Obama digs.

The restaurant association invited both Clinton and Obama to speak at the convention as well, but both were rallying voters in Oregon and Kentucky, who go to the polls today.