By KWMU/Associated Press
Cape Girardeau, MO – Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is holding an economic town hall meeting in southeast Missouri this afternoon.
The invitation-only event at a suit coat manufacturing company in Cape Girardeau is part of the Illinois Senator's tour of so-called swing states. But the chairman of Missouri's Republican Party, Doug Russell, says residents of the state are not sold on Obama's economic beliefs.
"If the Senator is honest with Missourians as he's in Cape Girardeau today he will not resonate with Missourians. He's a tax-raising liberal that I think is evidences through many of his positions on taxes."
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who is joining Obama at today's event, says he knows he needs to spend more time speaking to voters in rural America.
President Bush won in the state of Missouri in 2000 and 2004. And Obama lost to Hillary Clinton in Cape Girardeau County in February's Democratic presidential primary.