By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 1, 2008
TYLER, Tex., Feb. 27 -- As goofs go, John McCain's slip at a town hall forum Friday was a small one. Contrasting himself with his likely Democratic opponent, he said, "I'm a proud, conservative, liberal Repub --" And then he caught himself, just as the audience started laughing.
"Hello! Easy there. Let me say this," he tried again. "I am a proud, conservative Republican."
The slip of the tongue prompted Internet headlines all day, given the trouble the presumptive Republican nominee has had in convincing conservatives that he is not a liberal. But for McCain, the moment summed up how he plans to campaign this year: by using his knack for charm, bluntness and humor in one town hall after another all across America.
From the back of a 1980s-era bus, he will travel to and from college campuses, company break rooms and town squares. In between, he will hold court with small groups of reporters on the bus's faux-leather couch. And once a day or so he will push himself to hold a rally.
When he is done, he will get on a plane and take the show to another state. It's a quaint and inefficient way to sell a candidate to the American people, especially if McCain faces Barack Obama, whose rock-star persona can fill a stadium with 20,000 screaming fans. And Democrats are preparing an all-out campaign to undermine the image of openness that McCain's campaign hopes to foster.
But McCain and his top advisers believe he has no choice: It's simply who he is.
"We'll try to just do the same thing we have been doing, only with a wider audience," McCain told reporters on the Straight Talk Express in Ohio this week. "I admit that it's difficult. But I think we can do it. You've got to maintain the same flavor of the campaign that we have throughout."
That's a tall order as McCain takes his shoestring campaign from the hamlets of New Hampshire to the vast expanse of America. Modern presidential campaigns are built on jet planes, not charter buses; high-intensity TV ads, not lengthy conversations with reporters; and tightly controlled messages, not answers to sometimes oddball questions from whoever shows up.
Unlike President Bush, whose tightly controlled forums are filled only with GOP bigwigs and other invited guests, McCain flings the doors wide open.
So far, mostly Republicans have attended: military veterans who are there to honor McCain's service, conservatives eager to challenge him on immigration and the environment, staunch supporters, and the curious. But as he campaigns this fall, he is likely to face more Democrats and independents -- and much tougher questions.
For now, the events are predictable. In a half-hour, McCain gets a handful of easy questions, a few off-the-wall queries and some that give him the chance to prove his independence from Republican orthodoxy.
At one gathering recently, a woman asserted it would be "a waste" not to drill in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. McCain grinned, seeing an opportunity.
"This is the reason we have town hall meetings," McCain said. The refuge "is a pristine place," he continued. "I don't think it would be productive. . . . I worry about ruining one of the most pristine places in the country. That's just my opinion. Thank you for your question."
On Wednesday, McCain fielded questions from a few of the 400 voters who showed up in Tyler and then hopped a short flight to San Antonio for a town hall event at a large insurance company that caters to the military and veterans. On Thursday, he answered questions from students at Rice University in Houston, and it was at a town hall meeting Friday in Richardson, Tex., that he dropped the L-word.
They are all part of the senator's plan to craft a national image as the Republican nominee.
"What they are . . . trying to do is re-create the access and reinforce the image that he has that he speaks the truth and is authentic and not overly handled," said Terry Nelson, a veteran GOP strategist who ran McCain's campaign last year before leaving amid a financial crisis and staff shake-up. "If the campaign steps away from who he is, they'll be in trouble."
But that will not be easy. The demands of a national campaign mean that there won't always be time to gather up the reporters onto the back of a bus. And McCain will not have the luxury of returning to any state with the kind of frequency that he did during the New Hampshire primary.
Already, the Democratic Party is doing something that McCain's Republican rivals rarely did effectively: challenge his claims of being a straight-talking maverick who is not afraid to answer the hard questions.
The Democratic National Committee is recruiting "trackers" with hand-held video cameras to attend his town hall gatherings, recording his every word. The DNC is revamping its Web site to be an anti-McCain hub and churning out videos using McCain's own words on its "FlipperTV" Web site. They send out a daily "Mythbusters" e-mail and are prepping polling and focus groups to find new ways to target McCain's reputation.
"For too long, McCain has gotten a bit of a free pass on this," said DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney. "John McCain is no longer a maverick, and the Straight Talk Express has basically gone to the impound lot."
Finney conceded that McCain's town hall campaigns have proved successful. But she called his tendency to be frank about his differences with some voters "a campaign tactic" that Democrats will try to expose, particularly on the Iraq war and the economy.
"I recognize that's powerful," she said. "You pick a couple of places where you can triangulate against. But on two of the biggest issues facing our country -- Iraq and the economy -- there's no straight talk coming. It's more Bush talk."
No one knows the importance of the town hall meetings for McCain better than Nelson, who was at the helm last year as McCain tried to run a bloated, national campaign. That effort nearly failed as donors abandoned McCain and longtime supporters started questioning whether he had lost his famed maverick spirit.
It was not until McCain parked himself in New Hampshire again, eventually holding 101 town hall meetings and traveling with a small group of aides, that his campaign began to recover.
"What we went through, prior to the revival of the New Hampshire campaign, was a blessing in disguise," said Steve Duprey, one of McCain's top New Hampshire advisers. "The best way to run a McCain campaign is to have John McCain out there talking to voters. I don't think anyone in the campaign will forget that. Even if the scale is larger."
The scale is larger. In New Hampshire this year, McCain won the GOP primary thanks to about 80,000 voters, all living within a few hours' drive. In the general election, he faces the task of reaching tens of millions scattered across the country.
In Tyler on Wednesday morning, the audience was a bit bigger than his typical New Hampshire crowd.
"I did share those ditches with you in the muddy hills and valleys in Vietnam," said the first speaker. "All us veterans respect you and are ready to vote for you and expect you to be our next commander in chief." He went on to suggest a massive takeover of Iraq to "turn this thing around."
McCain deflected that suggestion, calling it "a radical solution." But first he was humble about his own service in Vietnam, where he was shot down and held prisoner for five years.
"I would remind you it doesn't take a lot of talent to get shot down," McCain said. "I was able to intercept a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane."
"I intercepted a round as well," the man responded.
"Thank you for serving. Semper Fi," McCain said.
On immigration, McCain told the audience that he would "secure the border first," but he made it clear that he is not in favor of deporting all illegal immigrants. "We are a humane, Judeo-Christian-value nation, and we will treat it in a humane way," he said.
Later in San Antonio, another speaker challenged him to explain his position on immigration.
"This meeting is adjourned," McCain deadpanned -- prompting laughter mainly because he is the last politician who would follow through on that threat.
He then proceeded to give a long answer to the question.
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