Decoding McCain
After months of non-stop spouting to the news media, John McCain cut off the water works amid a spectacular backdrop of mountains and sky in Sedona, Ariz. on Thursday when he suspended his presidential campaign.
McCain made his announcement and took no questions, leaving ample room for interpretation. His speech was the sort of cryptic document that entertains Kremlinologists.
"I am no longer an active candidate for my party's nomination for president," he said, leaving open the question of whether he's a passive candidate.
He congratulated Texas Governor George W. Bush, whose Super Tuesday victories pushed McCain to this point, and wished him well. But the Senator did not endorse Bush. And while McCain said of the voters, "I respect their decision," evidently he thinks he's still got something to sell to them.
His aides say McCain has "suspended" his campaign, but what on earth does that mean?
"That's a term that speaks to the FEC," said GOP consultant Charles Black, referring to the Federal Elections Commission.
Translation: Suspension means McCain can still draw campaign matching funds from the Federal Government. It also means that he's not running exactly, but rather walking.
It's common rhetoric to vow, as you drop out of the race, that the fight for your cause continues, even though you're no longer leading that fight. But McCain said, "I will never walk away from a fight for what I know is right and just for our country." And he spoke repeatedly of the "changes to the practices and institutions of our great democracy that are the purpose of our campaign."
His talk of fighting, change, and reform in his elliptical speech almost creates a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of Bush and his followers. But it's a gigantic bluff, unless McCain really intends to quit the party and run as an independent or third party candidate. And he won't do that. If he did, it would mean he'd given up on changing the GOP. All that McCain could do, as an independent candidate, is draw voters away from Bush - or Gore - and act as a spoiler - which hardly gibes with remarks like "the cause of reform (is) far greater and more important than the ambitions of any single candidate."
And even if McCain did run that way, he wouldn't win. How can a guy who can't beat one party, in its primary season, beat two in the general election? At best, he would draw so many ballots that fear would be knocked into the losing party, which might then recast itself for the next election four years later. That's fairly long-term thinking for a candidate who never set his travel schedule more than a day in advance.
McCain has said he would never leave the GOP, and he repeated in Arizona, "I love the Republican party. It is my home." For all of his Luke Skywalker talk, his "maverick" credentials are confined to campaign finance reform and a few unexpecte primary wins.
Does McCain intend to resume his campaign later, if he feels like it, or if Bush somehow steps on a mine? "I don't see a Bush misstep leading to the point where McCain could acquire enough delegates to think of winning the nomination," cautions Alexandra Cooper, a political science professor at Duke University. She adds that the Republican Party's tight delegate rules make an upset at the convention improbable.
Black says of Bush and McCain, "These guys agree on about 90% of all the issues. They're both part of the mainstream of the Republican Party." So the chances that McCain's going to do something really wild that will upend Bush's prospects are slim.
McCain's not endorsing Bush just yet, because he wants room to push his own agenda, to urge upon his party the need for reform. And maybe the party will listen more carefully once he's not chasing their chosen candidate around the yard. In turn, Black suggests that McCain "might, very properly, want to get more comfortable with the agenda Bush is going to run on before fully endorsing him."
So these two bitter Republican rivals need each other, although for different reasons.
In theory, Bush needs McCain - or at least his voters - if he's to beat Al Gore in the fall, since registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans in this country. But Bush always intended to run as a comparatively moderate Republican, so he could conceivably move back to the center and win over Democrats or independents leery of Gore. The Governor could do all that without losing the big GOP money which has bankrolled him and opposes campaign finance reform.
McCain needs Bush and their party to recognize his reform agenda. If they don't, he's a footnote or a crank. He said he would take his "crusade back to the United States Senate," but that's a body in no hurry at all to embrace his crusade. Remember, only four of McCain's fellow Republican Senators endorsed him, the rest of those who endorsed a candidate chose Bush.
"I don't know how effectively he can use his position in the Senate to accomplish the goals he wants," says Cooper.
After all, the whole point of his campaign was to get around the Senate and appeal to ordinary voters.