I had the pleasure of sitting in on this morning’s campaign conference call. Sen. McCain was unable to attend it personally, but his top aides Steve Schmidt, Jill Hazelbaker and Pat Hynes filled in. It was filled with a lot of information and I did my best to get all of it down.

• Steve Schmidt began the call by giving the broad outlines of McCain’s “Service to America” tour which begins next week. The Senator will travel to six places around the country that has impacted and influenced his life while he was growing up. The purpose is to show how McCain’s past is directly correlated to how he sees the world now and how he will act when he’s the 44th President of the United States. It’ll serve as the beginning of the campaign’s formal introduction of McCain to the American people that will run through the Senator’s speech at the Republican National Convention in September.
• Day 1 (March 31st): The Senator will give a speech at McCain Field in Meridian, Mississippi. The speech will highlight his family’s lifetime of service to this country through the military. From his grandfather serving 43 years in the military (1902-1945), to his father serving in WWII and Vietnam, to John McCain’s own experience in Vietnam and to his son Jimmy serving in Iraq and other soon Jack still at the Naval Academy.
• Day 2: McCain will head to Alexandria, VA where he will give a speech at Episcopal High School where he attended. He will talk about the lessons that his English teacher taught him that he continues to heed to this day.
• Day 3: He will then give a speech at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
• Day 4: He will then travel down to Pensacola, Florida where he attended the Navy’s flight school.
• Day 5: He’ll then travel to Jacksonville, Florida and give a speech that calls for greatly increasing the size of the military.
• Day 6: On the final day, he will return to his hometown in Prescott, Arizona and give a speech there.

After recounting that, Schmidt opened the floor to questions. Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard had the first one:

• Goldfarb asked about senior Obama adviser Merill McPeak’s somewhat anti-Semetic comments towards Israel and what that says about Obama himself.
• Schmidt talks about McCain’s long record of being pro-Israel, but goes on to say that McPeak’s comments are “disturbing” and that they help show that while the Obama campaign talks a good game about their New Politic, things like this just show the detachment Obama has between his rhetoric and reality.

Next up is Townhall’s Hugh Hewitt:

• Hewitt asks about McCain’s planned speech calling for an increased military and wonders if the McCain campaign will release any specific numbers.
• Schmidt doesn’t want to give anything away and says to just wait for the speech itself.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has the next one:

• He asks about Heath Schuler’s comments that McCain blocked a House border fence bill.
• Schmidt unequivocally denies that McCain did anything of the sort and wondered whether Schuler suffered one “too many hits” when he played college football to make him dream that up.

Ed Morrisey from HotAir has another:

• Continuing along the same vain, Morrisey asks about the Senator’s immigration position and the presence of Juan Hernandez in the campaign.
• Schmidt reiterates John McCain’s immigration position. The border will be secured before anything else, but McCain continues to believe in the need for some kind of guest worker program. Notes that whatever personal positions one may hold, if you work for Senator McCain you will only advocate positions that he believes in. Not your own.
• Morrisey follows up with another question but unfortunately I missed it. I’m sure the Captain will fill in the blanks.

Next up was Jennifer Rubin of Commentary and occasionally here at Race42008:

• She wanted to know the campaign’s thoughts on Obama’s statements that he would be open to raising taxes on individuals who make more than $75,000 a year and an increase in the captial gains tax.
• Schmidt takes Obama to task for his conception of what it means to be “rich.” Says that people who make $75,000 a year aren’t rich and that they are hard working Americans. If Obama’s tax plans are enacted, it will severely cripple the economy.

Doug Lambert of GraniteGrok had the last question:

• He wanted to know what McCain thought of Newt Gingrich’s idea to have McCain and Obama (or Clinton) do a series of Lincoln-Douglas style debates around the country.
• Schmidt says that McCain wants the general election with whichever Democrat prevails to be about the issues. Too often candidates have fought at the margins and thus have scored only marginal victories. He says that there are huge issues separating the candidates and the country as a whole and that this election will be one in which the country will decide which path to go down. Schmidt also says that Obama is misrepresenting his campaign. He bases it in this New Politics framework, but has been engaged in negative attacks almost everyday against Hillary Clinton. He also talks about being this unifying figure, but in reality, he’s a down the line liberal. At the same time, it’s John McCain who is rising about the fray and has the experience that shows that he is the one that can unify the country. John McCain is the real change agent.