McCain: GOP's Maverick Act

CBSNews.com's chief political writer David Paul Kuhn reports from the Republican National Convention in New York.

McCain will take the stage at the opening night of the Republican National Convention and defend President Bush as a resolute commander-in-chief. He will defend the wars waged by Mr. Bush. He will call for mutual respect among Democrats and Republicans as the presidential race shifts into high gear, according to a senior aide to the Arizona senator.

McCain has made an art of appearing above the partisan flap. His unscripted, impolitic persona has allowed him to escape the Scarlet Letter "P" for Politician worn by nearly everyone else inside the Beltway.

So when McCain speaks, people listen. Even Democrats and independents, hope Bush-Cheney strategists.

And Democrats are as quick to take cover from McCain's criticism as Republicans, who gave McCain a staring role in their convention's opening night.

When Republicans attacked Kerry as weak on defense, it was McCain who defended the Democrat's national security credentials.

And when McCain repeatedly called for President Bush to condemn the advertising attacks on Kerry's Vietnam record, Mr. Bush said he did not believe Kerry lied about his service.

Though Mr. Bush has not condemned the advertising specifically, last week he announced his support for McCain to end the campaign regulation loophole that allows for all such organizations to raise and spend limitless amounts of money. Democrats have relied on similar organizations, called 527 groups.

Just as President Bush heeded McCain's criticism of the Vietnam advertising, the Kerry campaign obeyed McCain's request to pull ads that used tape of McCain railing against Mr. Bush during the 2000 Republican primary race.

John McCain has become the arbitrator of partisan vitriol.

"I've talked to people who have been in this business a long time and they don't recall any political figure being in this position in modern politics," said John Weaver, McCain's chief strategist during his failed bid for the Republican nomination in 2000. "The magic of John McCain is that he is not a phony, he speaks his mind."

So McCain walks the political Middle Way. He backs Mr. Bush in the election but constantly defends Kerry as colleague and credible candidate.

Monday morning on Fox News, McCain said President Bush was most qualified to be president because he rallied the nation after the Sept. 11 attacks. But then he added that Kerry is also qualified for the Oval Office.

In interviews with about a dozen delegates, some agreed with McCain's positions while those that did not seemed content with the Arizona senator's support for President Bush.

"The senator is certainly entitled to his opinion. He can express that opinion which he does very eloquently," Missouri delegate Dave Cole said.

"The deal about his credentials and his Purple Hearts is between John Kerry and the Navy," Georgia alternate delegate Jim Strong said. "John McCain also reminds us of John Kerry's despicable behavior after he returned from Vietnam, his very un-American like behavior."

Wisconsin delegate Patrick Prudlow said he respects McCain for not always toting the party line because he helps civilize politics. "We gotta get back to civility," Prudlow said, "and stop beating up people."

Tonight's speech limits McCain to the ground he and Mr. Bush agree on -- national security.

Avoiding clear domestic policy differences over campaign finance reform, the extent of the president's tax cuts and a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, McCain will defend the war in Iraq as part of the larger war on terrorism.

He will make a "call for national unity" and a request for Democrats and Republicans to "put aside our differences" and "appreciate that both sides have good intentions," explained a senior aide to McCain. "The core of the speech is an explanation of why President Bush is the leader to win the war against terror," the aide continued.

Though no Republican appears with the president more than McCain, the two have had a tenuous relationship at best. Their 2000 primary battle for the Republican nomination was hostile.

After McCain upset Mr. Bush in New Hampshire, the Bush campaign attacked McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, as weak on defense.

The Bush campaign went so far as to get the chairman of a Vietnam and Gulf War veterans group, Thomas Burch Jr., to attest publicly that McCain "came home and forgot us." That was just part of a broad attack on McCain.

John Kerry then defended McCain's service by gathering a petition by Congressional Vietnam veterans asking then Governor Bush to cease the attacks. McCain's recent defense of Kerry's service was a similar gesture.

"Was I angry at the time? Sure, but you've got to get over it," McCain said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation. "I would hate for my legacy in politics in America: 'Well, he was angry for four years after something that happened in a political campaign.'"

Weaver characterized McCain's relationship with President Bush as "an evolving one," gradually becoming a "friendly relationship." He said McCain's relationship with Kerry is "that they are genuine friends." But then again, McCain told The Washington Post this week that, "I've never socialized with him [Kerry]."

For all gyrations, McCain backs Mr. Bush full throttle, just as he did in 2000 when the primaries were over.

"People forget that in 2000 that he campaigned with the president 15, 20 days and that's when we were just fresh off the primary fight," Weaver said. "So why are we surprised that he is doing it now?'

By David Paul Kuhn