Inman, South Carolina
John McCain finished a Q-and-A session with reporters here with a shot of his offbeat humor. “Thank you, jerks,” he said. A few hours later, he suggested in a speech to the Greenville Rotary Club that former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan could head a commission to reform the federal tax system. If he’s dead, McCain said, “prop him up and put some dark glasses on him, just like in Weekend at Bernie’s.”
McCain sneers at the importance of Iowa, whose caucuses on January 3 are the first contest in the Republican presidential race. “If I don’t finish in the top 50 in Iowa, I’ll still stay in the race,” he told reporters in South Carolina last week. In Iowa the next day, McCain went out of his way in a televised debate to denounce the federal subsidy for ethanol, a popular program in the state.
So the old McCain is back, the flippant, contrarian candidate who came close to defeating George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in 2000. And amazingly enough, after his campaign to be nominee in 2008 all but collapsed this summer, McCain is experiencing a rebirth. He now has a chance–an outside chance, at least–of winning the Republican nomination.
Things large and small in the campaign have been moving McCain’s way. The war in Iraq has turned sharply toward victory now that President Bush has adopted the strategy McCain had been recommending for several years. This is McCain’s best issue and now a distinct plus for his campaign. And the immigration issue, a poisonous one for McCain, has become less intense since his immigrant-friendly approach lost in the Senate last summer.
Then there’s the rise of Mike Huckabee, the ex-Arkansas governor. If he defeats Mitt Romney in Iowa next month–and polls show Huckabee ahead–that will disrupt Romney’s early-state strategy and leave him vulnerable in the New Hampshire primary on January 8. To capture the nomination, McCain must win in New Hampshire. McCain, by the way, likes Huckabee and can’t stand Romney.
Just as Romney has run into trouble, McCain’s other rivals have as well. The campaign of Rudy Giuliani, the ex-New York City mayor, has stalled amid a burst of unfavorable media stories. Former senator Fred Thompson has failed to stir significant support among conservatives, his target group. Still, like Huckabee, Thompson is running hard against Romney in Iowa.
In his up and down campaign, McCain has already disproved two pieces of conventional wisdom. One is that Republicans are a primogeniture party that routinely makes the next major Republican figure in line the near-prohibitive frontrunner. McCain, having paid his dues in 2000, did lead the pack initially, but his campaign cratered in June from overspending and the unpopularity of his position on immigration.
The second is that primary debates don’t matter. In McCain’s case (and Huckabee’s), however, televised debates have been a godsend. McCain’s recovery began in a Fox News debate in New Hampshire on September 5, when he pugnaciously challenged Romney on the surge.
Romney said the surge–consisting of a troop buildup in Iraq and a new counterinsurgency strategy–was “apparently working.” No, McCain responded sharply, “not apparently–it’s working.” Romney said he wanted to hear from General David Petraeus, the Iraq commander, to be certain. McCain took exception to that. The surge’s success, he repeated, “is more than apparent. It’s working.”
McCain was instantly crowned by the media as the winner of the debate. In effect, he was rewarded for vociferously persevering in his support for a war the media opposes. Even a few of his advisers had urged him to downplay his pro-Iraq position.
Six weeks later, McCain scored again in the Fox News debate in Orlando. The day before at a campaign event at the nearby Shingle Creek Resort, he had zinged Hillary Clinton for proposing to spend $1 million for a Woodstock concert museum. And hours before the evening debate, he told a town meeting he’d missed the Woodstock concert in 1969 because he “was tied up at the time.” He was a POW in North Vietnam.
His aides urged him to use the line in the debate. And he did–to great effect. After mentioning Clinton’s Woodstock scheme, McCain said, “I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event.” He paused as the audience laughed, then delivered the punchline. “I was tied up at the time.” The crowd roared.
McCain is concentrating his campaign on New Hampshire, where “he’s got to win,” according to former senator Phil Gramm of Texas, who traveled with McCain last week. If Romney loses there, “he’s out of the race,” Gramm says. Then, adds McCain adviser Charles Black, McCain will win in Michigan and South Carolina and take command of the race.
“Deep in their hearts,” Gramm says, “Republican primary voters know John McCain is the only great man running for president.” Maybe, but McCain doesn’t make it easy for them to vote for him.
To the delight of Republicans, he passionately defends the war in Iraq, favors restraining entitlements, and calls for cuts in government spending and elimination of earmarks. But he insists on stressing issues like global warming and strict limits on interrogation of terrorists, which are anathema to many Republicans. He regularly refers to illegal immigrants as “God’s children,” another irritant for some. And in farm state Iowa McCain declared he would “eliminate subsidies on ethanol and other agricultural products.”
It’s all part of the McCain package that’s far more conservative than not and often unpredictable. In Inman, a man gave McCain a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, saying he’d done the same on an aircraft carrier off Vietnam decades ago.
There was no reason for McCain to comment on this, yet he did. He held up the pack and said there was good news and bad news. “I’ve not had a cigarette in 28 years,” he said. “That’s the good news. The bad news is I still want a cigarette.” The best news for McCain, though, is that he once again has a shot at the Republican nomination.
Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD.
