Tough fight ahead, but McCain is up to it
Now things are going to get tough for John McCain. With Barack Obama closing his fist around the Democratic presidential nomination, Democrats will start uniting behind him, especially if Hillary Clinton winds down her campaign on a positive note. Barring some unexpected bolt of bad news for Obama or bitter last-gasp determination by Clinton, Obama should be the acknowledged nominee in a matter of weeks if not sooner.
In the first impact on McCain, polls showing the presumptive Republican nominee running even with Obama will slip as the Illinois senator basks in the glow of victory. Economic gloom, weariness with Iraq and disenchantment with President Bush will add to the drag on McCain as Democrats make a show of coming together.
Democrats will unleash political advertising attacking McCain. Already the Democratic National Committee has fielded two TV spots blatantly distorting what he has said about Iraq and the economy. Obama will turn up his drive to hang the mantle of George Bush around the Arizona senator's neck. The Obama faithful in the media will wring their hands over McCain's age and cite tired stories about his temper.
But campaigns have cycles, and McCain will weather this downturn. In a nightmare year for Republicans, the GOP had the good fortune to settle on its only leader with a chance to prevail in 2008.
His most important asset is that McCain actually is what Obama claims to be -- a politician who can work across party lines to achieve results. While Obama, rated by the National Journal as the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, has little to show in the way of reaching across the aisle, McCain has a solid record.
The Republican has worked with Democrats on contentious issues like immigration reform, campaign finance and global warming, and in doing so angered the conservative base. By banding with Democrats in the "Gang of 14," McCain helped avert a crisis on the nomination of federal judges, foiling plans for Republicans to exercise a "nuclear option" to force votes over the opposition of Democrats. This also won him no friends on the GOP's hard right.
Obama has done nothing like that. It was only in the throes of a political campaign that he did something alienating a part of the Democratic base. It wasn't done by taking a principled stand on an issue. Rather, he did it with an elitist slam on how, in hard times, small-town Americans "cling" to guns, God and antipathy to immigrants. He has his work cut out to repair that damage. He also must reconcile hard-core Clinton backers unhappy over her fate.
In the meantime, McCain has been reminding the conservative base that, on most issues, he is one of them. He advocates a free-market approach to health care, backs tax cuts and, perhaps most important, promises to appoint strict constructionists to judgeships.
Fans of Obama like to tout his personal story. He's the son of a black Kenyan man and a white American woman who won a place in America's most elite universities, worked as a community organizer on Chicago's South Side, earned his political spurs in the city's rough-and-tumble environment and emerged to become the first African American with a chance to win the White House.
McCain has his own story, one of incredible heroism. The scion of a distinguished military family, he became a Navy pilot and was shot down over North Vietnam. He was tortured, his body broken, but he refused to be freed ahead of other POWs, knowing that would have him be seen as a favored son getting special treatment. McCain took bandages from his wounds to provide crude medical treatment, saving one POW's ability to be a pilot. And he led religious services to help the Americans persevere during the ordeal of captivity.
A dark period is ahead for the McCain presidential aspirations, but it won't last. Recall that only a few months ago his bid for the GOP nomination was declared dead. McCain knows how to overcome adversity.
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