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Friday, February 04, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
It's Bush's to lose
Sen. McCain's secret weapon
Although Bill Bradley's liberaler-than-thou primary challenge to Democratic heir apparent Al Gore did not die outright with Mr. Gore's slim, 5-point victory in the New Hampshire primary this week, exit polls show the New York Knickerbocker has not won many hearts or minds among union members and other working-class party faithful.
With the Democratic primary calendar sending the candidates into a number of large states dominated by those constituencies (including California and New York) on March 7, Mr. Bradley's chances of wrestling away the nomination begin to look quixotic.
But it's quite a different matter on the GOP side.
Texas Gov. Bush still has the advantages of a mighty war chest and the anointment of most of the the GOP's kingmakers, desperate enough after having been locked out of the White House for eight years to have signed on early with what appeared to be a "moderate, consensus" candidate.
But at least some in the GOP must be harking back to 1976, when their opposite numbers in the Democratic Party attempted a similar early anointment of Washington Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson -- and then found themselves scrambling for tickets to their own runaway national convention.
It's all well and good to say Sen. McCain's New Hampshire victory was predictable because he skipped the Iowa caucuses in order to spend more time in the wintry Granite State. But a victory of 49 to 31 percent ain't small potatoes. And in this Internet age, Sen. McCain's staff reports raising an additional $500,000 over their Web site within hours of the New Hampshire tally.
Should Mr. Bush suffer another embarrassment at the hands of Steve Forbes in Delaware on Feb. 8 -- Sen. McCain has ignored this lesser primary, though millionaire publisher and "flat-taxer" Forbes, who finished third in New Hampshire, won the Delaware contest in 1996 -- the worries of the Bush camp will surely begin to mount.
The irony here is that Gov. Bush ought to be winning on the issues. With too-high tax rates leaving Washington awash in unexpected loot, Mr. Bush favors tax cuts, which would have the twin benefit of allowing Americans to make more of their own spending decisions on health care and everything else, while removing temptation from the path of the capital's already-bloated bureaucrats.
Sen. McCain favors using the funds to "pay down the debt," which sounds good but is more akin to leaving a hungry child at the dessert buffet with a promise "not to eat anything till I get back."
The centerpiece of Sen. McCain's platform -- campaign finance reform -- similarly plays well in the war of sound bites, but really only constitutes another incumbent-protection measure, while violating the Constitution for good measure.
So why is Sen. McCain's campaign trouncing the Bush campaign?
What Bush campaign?
Playing like a ball team sitting on a massive halftime lead, the Bush team's strategy to date has been to keep to the prepared script, swaddling their candidate in a cocoon of isolation, avoiding the press and its embarrassing questions.
Sen. McCain, on the other hand, met more than 60,000 people at 114 New Hampshire town meetings and answered every question he was asked, no matter how many hours it took.
Sort of like ... a political campaign.
And if the Bush camp's only answer is to go into South Carolina attacking Sen. McCain by proxy as "not enough of a social conservative" -- in other words, "too electable come November" -- the band could once more end up playing "The World Turned Upside Down."
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