Former Republican presidential candidate John McCain stopped in Seminole County on Tuesday to help drum up support for current nominee Mitt Romney.

About 350 people, many of them veterans, waited in Casselberry for a chance to see McCain.

"I'd like to give you a little straight talk my friends," McCain said. "Without Florida it's going to be a very difficult equation for Mitt Romney to win the presidency, so you have to get the vote out."

McCain urged veterans in the crowd to take the lead and drive voters to the polls for Romney. He insisted Romney would be a stronger commander in chief and a better leader for veterans who need jobs.

"I think Mitt Romney is committed to creating jobs that the president has miserably failed," he said.

In his public remarks McCain made no mention of the video that's knocked the Romney campaign far off its economic message.

Remarks made at a private Florida fundraising dinner, where Romney called supporters of the president "victims" dependent on the government. McCain, reflecting on his own campaign four years ago, said Romney was getting unfairly criticized.

"I seem to recall when I said the fundamentals of our economy are strong and I was attacked by the Obama campaign. I remember when then-candidate Obama talked about people and their love of guns and the Bible. I remember several things that President Obama said that no one criticized and things I said that were heavily criticized," said McCain.

From Casselberry, it's off to Jacksonville, a city that is special to McCain. He said Jacksonville's the city he came home to after his release from captivity in Vietnam.