Saturday, August 9, 2008; A06

Mark Salter, the top aide and longtime speechwriter for John McCain, has written a "working draft" of the senator's address to the Republican National Convention and is circulating the draft to a very limited number of his aides, sources inside the campaign said.

The speech as written runs roughly 21 minutes, but it could end up being even shorter, because McCain is not a fan of lengthy speeches, aides to the candidate said.

Plans call for the speech to be circulated among McCain's top advisers over the next several days, with a final draft delivered by Salter to McCain by Aug. 18.

Aides would not disclose the specific content or themes of the speech, but at a fundraiser in Des Moines yesterday, McCain sought to lower expectations about it, saying his delivery would not compare to Democrat Barack Obama's.

"I know, by the way, and you know, that Senator Obama will give great speech at their convention before 75,000 people in Denver," he told the crowd at the Wakonda Club. "And I don't expect to match up to that. . . . He's very, very good. But I think its going to be substance that matters. And I think it's going to be vision for America and I think it's going to be concrete plans of action."

-- Michael D. Shear