It was a sight you don’t see very often on the GOP campaign trail: John McCain, surrounded by a bevy of squealing teenage girls, many of them so red-faced and struggling to breathe they seemed in danger of passing out right there on the spot. “Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod,” one gasped, nervously fanning herself with her hands. A few feet away, another girl looked as though she had just completed the 100-meter dash at the Olympics, her body heaving with deep breath after deep breath. Secret Service agents on the scene, usually so stoic and emotionless in their work to protect the man who might be the next president, eyed the girls, their faces alternating between pure puzzlement and mild concern.

Of course, none of this had anything to do with McCain. Appearing before a small group of honor students at Phoenix’s Central High School (his wife Cindy’s alma mater) on Monday morning, McCain announced that he had gotten the bling bling endorsement of one Daddy Yankee, a big deal Latin American recording star perhaps best known for his 2006 reggaeton hit “Gasolina.” Daddy Yankee, who met McCain that year at a reception honoring Time Magazine’s most influential people (they both made the list), joined McCain at Central High, quickly upstaging his host.  “Sup Mama,” the Daddy said, as he hugged and kissed one of his young fans. Yankee, who met with McCain at his Arlington, Va., campaign headquarters last month (sending Hispanic reporters on scene covering the event into similar hysterics), told the students that he decided to support McCain, in part, because he had championed the recent immigration reform bill. “(McCain’s) a fighter for the Hispanic community,” the rapper said. “I just want to say thank you Daddy Yankee,” McCain said, pleasing this reporter who wondered if the senator would, in fact, call the star “Daddy.” (For the record, McCain did also refer to Mr. Yankee to as “Ramon”—his real first name.”)

Unfortunately, Daddy Yankee was not joined by his usual posse of young buxom women, who have appeared in most of his music videos. A campaign aide insisted McCain was under no allusions that Yankee’s biggest crossover hit “Gasolina” has anything to do with the energy independence policies he’s been touting on the campaign trail lately but rather a different kind of energy. (The anthem, when translated into English, includes the Yankee repeatedly saying of the unnamed subject of the song: “She likes gasoline!” To which a woman responds, “Give me more gasoline!”) The Daddy later joined McCain on his campaign plane en route to California, where the senator is presiding over finance events before heading to "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." Asked directly by the New York Times’ intrepid Michael Cooper what “Gasolina” really means, the star smiled and said, “Energy independence.”

The strange scene was enough to distract reporters from the fact they believed they would be covering a “press conference” this morning, as the McCain schedule had advertised. McCain, who has been at his Sedona cabin for several days working on his convention speech and readying the announcement of his VP pick, has not taken questions from his traveling press corps since Aug. 13 when he visited Michigan. An aide this morning defended the use of “press conference” to describe the Daddy Yankee event, noting that if McCain were to take questions the campaign would refer to it as a “media availability.” Duly noted.