McCain Revs Up the Bus
A re-energized candidate hits the trail in the Granite State
Corrected on 9/27/07: An earlier version of a photo caption accompanying this story incorrectly stated that Bill Grimm’s son was killed in Iraq. In fact, the son is alive and is currently serving in Iraq. U.S. News deeply regrets the error.
Franklin, N.h.—John McCain was holding court again last week and relishing it.
Fresh off good reviews from the recent gop presidential debate and on his first major campaign swing since his mid-summer meltdown, the Arizona senator was ensconced in the back of a rented custom party bus as it rolled up Route 3 on his "No Surrender" tour.
Knee to knee and on the record with a gaggle of reporters, holding forth on issues ranging from Iraq to his age (71) and his puzzlement over the decline in popularity of the card game bridge, McCain evoked the man who captivated the Granite State in its 2000 primary.
But, as he knows better than anyone, the times have changed in ways that nobody could have imagined seven years ago. Despite the friendly and sometimes modest crowds that greeted him, McCain is in big trouble here. The independent voters he successfully courted in 2000 have turned away, objecting to his support for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq. Thirty-eight percent say that under no circumstances would they support him.
"Americans are frustrated, they're angry, and they're saddened" about Iraq, he says. But the troops on the ground, he insists, are pleading: "Let us win."
Crunch time. "We are facing a seminal time in the history of this country," McCain says, often referring to Democratic troop withdrawal proposals as "cut and run." So in spite of the polls that show him badly trailing here, in Iowa, and in South Carolina and the conservative base irritated by his support of campaign finance reform and the recent failed immigration bill, the former Navy pilot has staked his future on the war and his national security bona fides.
During last week's tour, he was surrounded by veterans, including a coterie of fiercely loyal friends who were prisoners with him during the Vietnam War, and spoke only of the war during his series of visits to local vfw halls. Longtime friend James Woolsey, former cia director and under secretary of the Navy, also was on the bus. They characterize McCain as an oracle—calling years ago for more boots on the ground in Iraq.
Is it a strategy that will doom his presidential chances? After all, McCain was nearly tied for second with recently announced gop candidate Fred Thompson in a new national presidential poll. But McCain himself said last week that the eventual nominee has to win two of the first three early contests during the primary season. And despite his problems, New Hampshire is one of the early contests where he's polling best—at 12.8 percent, behind Mitt Romney at 30 percent and Rudy Giuliani at 20.8.
"It's going to be really hard here," says Wayne Lesperance of New England College. "He needed to have a breakout moment, a bounce-back, and he had that after the debate." Anger here over the immigration bill seems to have faded, and "he's got some time," Lesperance adds. "But Giuliani and Romney both have impressive campaigns and are spending a lot of money."
Shoestrings. Money is a very real issue for McCain. When his campaign imploded in July with the resignation of two of his top advisers and his entire press staff, McCain's organization reported that it had raised $24 million in the previous quarter but had spent most of it. The vaunted 50-state campaign of the presumptive gop candidate was over, more staffers were shed, and McCain went back to campaigning on a shoestring.
Meanwhile, his support here plummeted from 29 percent to 12 percent, and he is considering taking federal matching campaign funds, whose limits would put him at a disadvantage. McCain says he has had a fundraising boost since the debate and after the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus to Congress saying the surge is working.
Fergus Cullen, the chairman of New Hampshire's Republican Party, says that McCain still has the second-strongest organization in the state despite his campaign's earlier problems. And people here like that he seems more "comfortable in his own skin" than his earlier incarnation. "And his credibility on military matters is unmatched," Cullen adds.
As the bus rolled on last week, McCain clearly was having more fun than he's had in a long while. He cracked up when Woolsey performed a dead-on impersonation of British comic Ali G. He cackled during a phone interview with Jon Stewart and proudly showed off his phone's "$200,000 screen saver," a photo of him with his newly minted Columbia University graduate daughter, Meghan.
Asked why he continues the grueling schedule of a campaign, McCain says simply: "That's what we always do, and I enjoy it."
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