Video: McCain comes to Bellevue for private fundraiser

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SEATTLE — U.S. Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, came to Western Washington Tuesday for an environmental roundtable in North Bend and a fundraiser at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Bellevue.

"I've been to Greenland and watched the incredible, incredible erosion of the icepack there including melting there in places they never knew existed that have been under ice for thousands of, if not millions of years," said McCain said Tuesday morning at the Cedar River Watershed Education Center at North Bend. It's the gateway to the Cedar River Municipal Watershed, the main drinking water source for the greater Seattle area.

He is also holding a fundraiser this evening at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Bellevue. According to a Web site for the Bellevue event Tuesday evening, tickets are $10,000 for a photo reception, $2,300 for a VIP reception, $1,000 for the main reception, and $33,100 for a "victory dinner."

McCain flew into Boeing Field this morning, where members of Boeing's Machinists Union staged a protest. Those workers say McCain was instrumental in allowing a multi-billion dollar Air Force contract for air tankers to go to Airbus instead of Boeing.

"We are bleeding jobs all over the world and John McCain is exporting those jobs on a silver platter," said one protester.

Union leaders say a lost contract cost America 44,000 jobs and $40 billion when the Air Force rejected a Boeing bid to build a tanker. While Boeing has filed an appeal and the General Accounting Office is reviewing the process, union members and advocates of American jobs partly blame McCain. The Washington Congressional delegation is united in its support of the Machinist-built Boeing tanker, citing national security, economic and environmental concerns.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.