Raining on the Coronation

...The support of the likes of Pat Robertson, which may have seemed like a floral gift basket when it was delivered in Michigan, soon gave off a sickly odor...

...they are out for largess not forreform...

...The refurbished Gore showed a highly combative streak in their encounters that promises to make for a rouser of a Presidential campaign as both contestants compete for the middle ground that McCain energized...

...Although there is an irony in McCain's predicament, given his career-long record as a thoroughgoing Right-winger, that's what a Republican reformer is up against...

...And unlike McCain, Bradley was inhibited from getting too tough on campaign finance lest he seem to be undermining his own party's Administration...

...One way to improve the debates is to keep Larry King off the screen...

...For my money, McCain's attacks on the Pat Robertson-Jerry Falwell gang as "agents of intolerance," much criticized as a tactical error, was a refreshing example of plain talk...

...Staunch conservative though McCain has perforce been proclaiming himself (up against Gore he would assuredly have discovered his more liberal side), he demonstrated by his valiant insurgency that there is a constituency ready to follow an engaging leader with a wellfocused mission...

...The problem here seemed to be that whatever the intentions of Bradley, at times he was reduced to the Gore tendency toward snideness lest he seem like a wimp...

...It took the Bush camp tens of millions of dollars to counter McCain's threat in the primaries, but more than that he subjected its nominee to skeptical scrutiny as a man running on hollow and changeable slogans...

...They liked McCain the man...

...So barring a further McCain miracle, the Republican Party will be entering the Presidential contest with a candidate of dubious credentials: a regionally limited, intellectually negligible, ideologically compromised figure, whose main campaign promise, the good old tax cut, is inspiring remarkably little enthusiasm even in his own ranks...

...The price Bush has had to pay to stave off McCain is bound to burden his party in this difficult year...

...But his fans have to hope that the champion of election reform will not live down to so paltry a claim...

...I love the Republican Party...

...But that was ancient history, and fortunately for him, Bradley proved a fuzzy if earnest campaigner who never managed to draw forceful distinctions between himself and the Vice President...

...In any event, he can take comfort in the assurance— here's my easy prediction—that he could not have done worse than George W. and his cohort of the benighted...

...The McCain-Bush race turned into more of a division than a competition, with McCain appealing to independents and (yes...

...What would Hillary say...

...As for those famous "negative advertisements" that all the candidates vowed to forgo and then went for, it seems to me that they are an inescapable part of any campaign: Your opponent's record is fair game, and that means a certain amount of negativity...

...In the light of Bradley's other troubles, McCain's popularity among Democrats and independents must have seemed an elbow to the Adam's apple...

...Whether it amounts to much more than a gesture remains to be seen...

...Republican hopes, so hastily vested in George W. Bush, were symptoms of the party's desperation to find a winner, however thin his record, however light his intellect...

...A Presidential campaign is not a good occasion for sensitivity training...

...Once confronted with Republican-only primaries and the delegate arithmetic, McCain was battered by the GOP machine, from New York's George Pataki to Florida's Jeb Bush...

...its candidates were up against the Clinton, oops, Clinton-Gore prosperity, and the impeachment spectacle had left Republicans in Congress looking vindictive and incompetent...

...Democrats, while Bush depended on true-blue Republicans...

...Only instead of the Republican governors who flocked to Bush, Bradley faced the indifference of black politicians despite his theme of racial justice, of a major pro-choice organization despite his consistent record on abortion, and of course of big labor...

...Maybe there aren't any...

...His fellow Republicans have little taste for campaign reform, less even than the contaminated Democrats...

...As the Republican candidate, McCain may not have had much of a chance in this (probably) Democratic year, but he would have made a battle of it...

...Considering the level of discourse, that may be evidence of editorial taste rather than of miserly coverage...

...Gore was slightly soiled by the primary opposition of Bill Bradley, who exposed the Vice President's wavering record on abortion, gun control, tobacco and other issues popular among the middleLeft constituency to which he made his appeal...

...The reactions to criticism were predictably risible...

...The Governor jumped into bed, pardon the expression, with the Christian coalition, a fun playmate in primaries, especially in a state that flies the Confederate flag, but an embarrassment in elections...

...What it can use is more substance and less posturing and pandering...

...Whereas there was widespread skepticism that George W. had ever read a book, McCain was the author of a best seller...

...It's like waking up the morning after and finding yourself in the clutching embrace of the companion you were seduced by the night before, all her stretch marks suddenly conspicuous...

...His boast of being the champion educational innovator holds more appeal...

...Like McCain, Bradley could not match his party's establishment when it came to rounding up the usual troops...

...The election will be decided in the middle, which George W. must now scramble to woo as he jilts the Christian coalition...

...I leam from the Alliance for Better Campaigns, which is calling for fuller television coverage of "candidate discourse," that in the two weeks after the New Hampshire primaries, the three major networks gave a scant average of 26 seconds a night to the words of the candidates themselves...

...Even before the McCain distraction, the party's November prospects seemed dim...

...What Bush had going for him, along with the name, was his backers' money as well as a batch of primary opponents whose grip on political reality evidenced a need for psychological attention...

...The Battle of John McCain Raining on the Coronation By Walter Goodman If nothing else, John McCain should find satisfaction in the wounds he has wreaked on the Republican Establishment that crushed his dramatic insurgency...

...Blind-sided by McCain and outgunned by Gore, he found no purchase on this playing field...

...Yet he managed to broaden the Democratic agenda and shift it slightly to the Left...

...These have been shaky months for prophets, but some predictions seem easy...

...And McCain's much criticized show of anger at the camouflaged insults of the Bush "volunteers" had a protest-too-much flavor...

...Although Bush will assuredly try to milk that episode, preachments against bigmoney solicitations cannot come with good grace from the big contributors' pal...

...WhenBush whined about McCain's saying that he resembled Bill Clinton, and when McCain made a big deal of the charge that he did not weep sufficiently for veterans, they were working on the soft-minded out there...

...Those special interests, to borrow a phrase, just want to be with the winner in what may well be the year of Gore...

...Even if McCain is not around to remind voters of the courtship, we can count on Al Gore to do the job...

...McCain rained on that coronation by entering the race and establishing himself as the champion of campaign-finance reform, by his forthcoming personality and war record, and by his defiance of the Bush heritage...

...Gore is also fortunate that he will not be obliged to set his personality against McCain's...

...And anyway, his newfound admirers among swing voters seemed not to care about his voting record or his vaguely defined views on many matters, both foreign and domestic...

...For that, we would have to re-elect Bill Clinton...

...Alas, liberals are stuck with him, even if he will never make it as an alpha male...

...House Republicans and perhaps a few Senators, already in jeopardy, will have to distance themselves from their compassionate conservative or reformed reformer, this promiser of bringing Americans together who became the darling of an implacably divisive Right...

...In the testy primary debates of both parties, with their juvenile charges of who was the biggest liar, nobody came out particularly well...

...It is my home"), may be accurate...

...It was not liberaldom's most daring hour...

...Gore can thank the political gods that McCain, the crusader against soft money, will not be running against him and reminding voters of those Buddhist nuns...

...His sporadic efforts to persuade loyalists that he was one of them, despite his reformer's clothing ("I am a proud Reagan conservative...

...He is a worthy man whose character puts Gore in the shade, but he just may have been too private a politician, too remote for what was required...

...Notwithstanding their instructive moments, the debates ended up as "you're one too" exchanges, and it's a safe bet that the Presidential debates will suffer from the same sort of adolescent insults...

...One consequence of a good healthy battering in November may be a shakeup of the Republican Party, with McCain playing an eminent role, if he has not already fled in disgust...

...He grew in status when he turned maverick, showing his more interesting self...

...When it comes to personality, reactions differ, but a fellow who changes his suits to please the polls cannot come on as a model of authenticity...