Several small business owners from Maine today endorsed U.S. Sen. John
McCain's presidential bid, praising his economic plan to help small
businesses.

The endorsements came at a Portland press conference held as part of a
national campaign effort to draw attention to McCain's new economic plan.
The presumptive GOP nominee's Jobs for America plan proposes changes in tax, health care and energy policies designed to help small businesses.

Republican state Reps. Josh Tardy of Newport, owner of a furniture company;
and Meredith Strang Burgess of Cumberland, an advertising executive; and
Doug Newman, owner of a concrete business in Richmond, threw their support
behind McCain's plan today.

McCain is scheduled to appear at a town hall meeting in Denver, where he
will introduce the plan and renew his promise to balance the federal budget
by 2013, the end of his first term.