Members of the Harvard Republican Club who volunteered at GOP campaign headquarters in Boston yesterday got a special treat when Meghan M. McCain, daughter of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, came to town to rally the faithful.

Surrounded by handmade hot-pink signs with slogans like “Blogette Power” and “Boston McLovin McCain,” the senator’s 24-year-old daughter greeted the crowd that had gathered in front of the campaign’s Tremont Street headquarters to meet her.

Andrew J. Crutchfield ’12, who spent the morning at the campaign office calling swing voters in New Hampshire, was one of the Harvard Republicans waiting to meet her when she came inside to talk to the volunteers.

“I’ve followed Meghan McCain on her blog, and I know that she’s done a lot for her father,” Crutchfield said. “I thought it would be great to see her in person.”
The freshman said he was impressed by his brief meeting with McCain.

“You can tell if someone is being fake, and it was apparent that she wasn’t. She seemed to be a nice, genuine person,” Crutchfield said. “Obviously, she was working the crowd, and I didn’t get that much time with her. However, she was really accommodating about letting us on the bus.”

“The bus” was one of the four models of the famed “Straight Talk Express” that Sen. McCain and his campaign used during the 2000 Republican presidential primaries and have put to use again during the 2008 presidential election cycle, which has pitted him against Illinois Democrat Barack Obama.

In an interview on the bus, McCain—who said she voted for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004—gave reasons why she thinks young, undecided voters should select her father in November as the next president of the United States.
 
“I think that my dad is a uniter, and I’ve seen that on the campaign trail," she said. "I doubt that there are nearly as many Republicans supporting Senator Obama.”

McCain also said she was concerned about an Obama victory in November.

“We need someone who will bring people together, especially in the aftermath of this emotional election,” McCain said, “and I know that my dad is the person to do it.”

A New York Times/CBS poll released Tuesday showed Sen. McCain trailing Obama 53 percent to 39 percent among likely voters nationwide.

Despite expressions of admiration from those who gathered to welcome McCain, not everyone in the crowd was a supporter of her father. One man in particular stuck out from the crowd with an Obama button on his shirt.

“I work across the street and I was curious to see what was going on,” John D. Carver said. “I’m voting Democratic, like everyone I know, and I’m surprised she would even show up in this state.”

—Staff Writer Prateek Kumar can be reached at kumar@fas.harvard.edu.