McCain's Last Stand
BARNES, FRED
McCain’s Last Stand He still has a chance. BY FRED BARNES Inman, South Carolina John McCain finished a Q-and-A session with reporters here with a shot of his offbeat humor. “Thank you,...
...Even a few of his advisers had urged him to downplay his pro-Iraq position...
...The surge’s success, he repeated, “is more than apparent...
...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...
...Romney said he wanted to hear from General David Petraeus, the Iraq commander, to be certain...
...But he insists on stressing issues like global warming and strict limits on interrogation of terrorists, which are anathema to many Republicans...
...The crowd roared...
...He now has a chance—an outside chance, at least—of winning the Republican nomination...
...And in farm state Iowa McCain declared he would “eliminate subsidies on ethanol and other agricultural products...
...Then, adds McCain adviser Charles Black, McCain will win in Michigan and South Carolina and take command of the race...
...His aides urged him to use the line in the debate...
...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...
...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...
...I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event...
...And he did—to great effect...
...The bad news is I still want a cigarette...
...McCain sneers at the importance of Iowa, whose caucuses on January 3 are the fi rst contest in the Republican presidential race...
...In his up and down campaign, McCain has already disproved two pieces of conventional wisdom...
...It’s all part of the McCain package that’s far more conservative than not and often unpredictable...
...Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...He regularly refers to illegal immigrants as “God’s children,” another irritant for some...
...Former senator Fred Thompson has failed to stir signifi cant support among conservatives, his target group...
...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...
...Things large and small in the campaign have been moving McCain’s way...
...Maybe, but McCain doesn’t make it easy for them to vote for him...
...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 held up the pack and said there was good news and bad news...
...After mentioning Clinton’s Woodstock scheme, McCain said, “I wasn’t there...
...In effect, he was rewarded for vociferously persevering in his support for a war the media opposes...
...I’ve not had a cigarette in 28 years,” he said...
...He paused as the audience laughed, then delivered the punchline...
...Romney said the surge—consisting of a troop buildup in Iraq and a new counterinsurgency strategy—was “apparently working...
...I was tied up at the time...
...He was a POW in North Vietnam...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...The war in Iraq has turned sharply toward victory now that President Bush has adopted the strategy McCain had been recommending for several years...
...If he’s dead, McCain said, “prop him up and put some dark glasses on him, just like in Weekend at Bernie’s...
...Deep in their hearts,” Gramm says, “Republican primary voters know John McCain is the only great man running for president...
...McCain’s recovery began in a Fox News debate in New Hampshire on September 5, when he pugnaciously challenged Romney on the surge...
...One is that Republicans are a primogeniture party that routinely makes the next major Republican fi gure in line the near-prohibitive frontrunner...
...Still, like Huckabee, Thompson is running hard against Romney in Iowa...
...McCain was instantly crowned by the media as the winner of the debate...
...Then there’s the rise of Mike Huckabee, the ex-Arkansas governor...
...That’s the good news...
...McCain, by the way, likes Huckabee and can’t stand Romney...
...This is McCain’s best issue and now a distinct plus for his campaign...
...There was no reason for McCain to comment on this, yet he did...
...Six weeks later, McCain scored again in the Fox News debate in Orlando...
...And the immigration issue, a poisonous one for McCain, has become less intense since his immigrant-friendly approach lost in the Senate last summer...
...The second is that primary debates don’t matter...
...In McCain’s case (and Huckabee’s), however, televised debates have been a godsend...
...Thank you, jerks,” he said...
...It’s working...
...McCain took exception to that...
...If Romney loses there, “he’s out of the race,” Gramm says...
...The best news for McCain, though, is that he once again has a shot at the Republican nomination...
...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...
...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...
...And amazingly enough, after his campaign to be nominee in 2008 all but collapsed this summer, McCain is experiencing a rebirth...
...No, McCain responded sharply, “not apparently— it’s working...
...If I don’t fi nish in the top 50 in Iowa, I’ll still stay in the race,” he told reporters in South Carolina last week...
Vol. 13 • December 2007 • No. 15
