From a distance, it sounded like he was aping White House talking points. But the comparison only went so far. "Couldn't we go back to a level of civility where we don't question each other's patriotism all the time?" he told one crowd, eliciting rousing applause. He repeatedly recommended two books on Bush's foreign policy disaster, "Cobra II" by the New York Times' Michael Gordon and "Fiasco" by the Washington Post's Thomas Ricks. "I don't think the Madrid bombing had anything to do with the war in Iraq," he said on the bus, a line unlikely to escape the lips of Bush. Then he delivered another. "I am not sure at the moment we are succeeding in the war on terror."
But such nuance is lost in most political campaign coverage. The newspaper scribblers only have space in their stories for about two paragraphs to describe McCain's positions. The television networks have almost no time at all. The rest of the space is devoted to framing the event and describing the horse race -- the concerns of conservatives, the concerns about his age, the concerns about his closeness to Bush and the war strategy, the question of how much this Straight Talk shtick is just an act. The top of the story is reserved for McCain's mistakes, which are inevitable given the format. During one of his town hall addresses, which can be as freewheeling as those on the bus, he said that Republicans "lost the war," when he meant to say Republicans "lost the election" in 2006. He corrected himself. At another address, he used the word "tar baby" in its proper context, without any apparent racial overtones. But minutes after the speech, he said he regretted using the word, which has long been taboo in politics.
His biggest flub came in response to my question about taxpayer-funded contraception in Africa to prevent AIDS. At first, he said he would support it, along with abstinence education. Then he got confused, worried that he had dug himself a hole. He said he wasn't familiar with the issue and didn't know his own position. He asked Brian Jones, his communications director, for help. "You've stumped me," McCain said, before clamming up as the scribblers ganged up on him, asking more questions about the efficacy of condoms and sex education. Within hours, the Washington Post, the New York Times and Salon's War Room all had blog posts up about the incident, suggesting it was a window into the essential McCain dilemma: Can he appeal to social conservatives while struggling to remain authentic? It became the headline of the day. In response, a blogger at the New Republic declared a bit triumphantly: "There is no way that he can hold up under a year's worth of questions like this."
The reality could be far more unpredictable. McCain and Weaver have promised to run the campaign throughout with an open-door policy, despite the obvious risks. On the bus, McCain joked that the press would never forgive him if he did otherwise. "I'd have to hire a food taster, someone to start my car in the morning," he said. There is no doubt that he is determined to win over the media again, by offering us the ego-inflating pleasure of riding the country as a peer to a possible president of the United States.
But candidate McCain has also re-embraced a radical notion for this modern era of e-mailed opposition research and minute-by-minute news cycles, when a sound bite can be heard instantly around the world but a position paper is never read. He is betting that voters will forgive a front-runner's public flubs, and the headlines they produce, if they feel they are voting for a real person, not a consultant-managed product. He is, in other words, deeply wedded to the idea of being "unleashed," like Bob Dole in the final days of the 1996 election, once he abandoned hope and decided to ignore the consultants around him. "I'd rather make the mistakes and go on," McCain said. "Life's too short." Besides, he added, he liked the challenge. "It invigorates me. It keeps me on my toes."
It is still too early to know if Weaver and McCain will keep their word as this long and brutal campaign enters its final months. But the other presidential candidates would do well to take notice. McCain is again laying out a challenge to the presidential field: Come out from behind the pre-programmed events and five-minute "press availabilities." There may be many reasons why he should not be the next president of the United States, but McCain's willingness to be quizzed for hours by reporters trying to unearth new information is certainly not one of them.
About the writer
Michael Scherer is Salon's Washington correspondent. Read his other articles here.
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