Accessibility Opens Doors For McCain

McCain began the 2008 campaign anointed by the media as the GOP front-runner. But some journalists turned on the Arizonan, with such liberal columnists as Paul Krugman, Jonathan Alter, E.J. Dionne and Arianna Huffington taking him on.

His staunch support for the Iraq war, then at the peak of its unpopularity, was clearly a factor. So was the widespread belief that the longtime maverick had become an establishment candidate, making compromises and mending fences, particularly with leaders of the religious right.

Last summer, when McCain's fundraising imploded and his top strategists left, the previously admiring press corps instantly turned on him. A flurry of articles amounted to premature obituaries -- he had no money, so how could he be a serious contender? -- and McCain, often carrying his own bags on commercial flights, faded from the news.

The reporters returned once he started surging in the New Hampshire polls, and McCain's bus again became the rollicking center of his campaign. As modest progress in Iraq, coupled with stumbles by his rivals, gave McCain a boost, the tone of the coverage turned decidedly positive.

Still, the shadow of the last campaign hangs over this one.

"The journalists who covered McCain in 2000 feel very self-conscious about the criticism that the press came under for apparently being so taken with John McCain," says Ana Marie Cox, the Time blogger who has been covering him. "There's a sense that the first time was so fun and exciting, but this time we're really going to be sober and critical and the dispassionate observers we're supposed to be."

Reporters following McCain and his rivals are sometimes frustrated at how the Democratic race overshadows the GOP contest -- which may have muffled his New Hampshire bounce. From Jan. 6 (two days before New Hampshire) through Jan. 11, says the Project for Excellence in Journalism, 37 percent of the campaign stories it studied were either primarily or significantly about Hillary Clinton, 32 percent about Barack Obama and 24 percent about McCain.

McCain strategists recognize that he made a tactical error in Michigan that boomeranged on him in the media's sound-bite culture. He said in the recession-battered state that many manufacturing jobs aren't coming back -- and vowed, through retraining and technology programs, not to leave those workers behind.

But television often failed to include the more complicated second part of his message. One ABC story, reporting only that McCain prescribed "tough love," showed him saying: "Well, I wanna look you in the eye and tell you some straight talk: The old jobs won't come back." Romney, who grew up in Michigan, seized the opening, promising to pump as much as $100 billion into auto-industry research to restore the lost jobs. In the blur between New Hampshire and Michigan, few reporters questioned how Romney would finance his plan or compared the candidates' proposals until the former Massachusetts governor had carried the state.

McCain showed a brief flash of anger when I asked him if he had made a misstep. "Whether you view it as a misstep or not, I will tell people the truth," he said sharply.

As the Straight Talk Express rolled from Greenville to Spartanburg, McCain, sipping a Coke, was upbeat with a half-dozen reporters, even though he had lost Michigan the night before. After he fielded questions on strategy, the economy, abortion, Iraq, Romney and Huckabee, the assembled journalists seemed to run out of ammunition and the conversation grew more relaxed.

McCain talked about the beauty of Greenville's minor-league baseball stadium. He recounted his time drinking vodka with Hillary Clinton in Estonia. He made a show of blaming a top aide, Steve Schmidt, for losing Michigan -- "It's all his fault, it certainly isn't mine" -- and downgraded him from Capt. Schmidt to Cpl. Schmidt.

"What did you do without us this morning?" asked Chicago Tribune reporter Jill Zuckman, since the senator had taken the unusual step of traveling separately from the press corps.

"It was terrible," McCain replied. "Withdrawal. Shaky. Had to have a couple of shots of vodka and calm myself down."

"Were you hanging out with other reporters?"

McCain acted horrified. "I was not unfaithful," he insisted.