McCain Accepts a Hand From Bush, at Arm's Length

By Michael Abramowitz, Michael D. Shear and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 28, 2008

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- When President Bush ventured here for a private fundraiser with John McCain on Tuesday night, his first real campaign appearance with the presumptive GOP nominee, the event was closed to the news media and their only joint public appearance was a photo op on the airport tarmac that lasted less than a minute.

The same ground rules will cover Bush's trip to Utah on Wednesday, where he will appear with former presidential candidate Mitt Romney to woo big-money Republican donors to McCain's cause.

The fleeting public appearances of an unpopular president on behalf of the potential heir to the leadership of the Republican Party underscore the delicate balance for McCain, who is trying to appeal to a restless GOP base that continues to embrace the president while reaching out to moderates and independents who want to move beyond the Bush administration. For now, the senator from Arizona remains locked in a tight race for the White House -- evidence that Americans see him as a brand apart from the GOP.

Whether McCain can continue soaring above his ailing party, or will find himself crashing down to Earth with it, could determine whether Republicans retain control of the White House next year.

"That's the $64,000 question," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

"It's the million-dollar question," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), upping the ante. "Nobody knows."

McCain's polling numbers are strikingly at odds with those of his party and his president. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll this month, voters said, by 53 percent to 32 percent, that the Democratic Party is better positioned than the GOP to deal with the country's main problems. But asked whom they favored more for the presidency, Democratic front-runner Barack Obama or McCain, Obama had a substantially smaller edge, 51 to 44 percent.

Among independent men, McCain runs ahead of the Republican Party by 20 percentage points. Among white evangelical Protestants and white voters with family incomes under $50,000 a year, McCain outperforms his party by 19 percentage points. Whites 65 and over were 18 points more likely to choose McCain over Obama than they were to favor the GOP.

And the trend is similar for self-described political moderates, independents, white men and married men.

In contrast, Obama lags behind his party's score in the polls by at least 10 percentage points among older white voters, white evangelicals, self-described Democrats and Democratic men.

"John McCain is a tremendous asset for us," said Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is charged with electing Republicans to the House. "He's running better in this environment than most Republicans because he's established a reputation for integrity and a bias for action."

To Democrats, and some Republicans, McCain's current act of levitation is ephemeral. The protracted Democratic nomination battle has allowed him to maintain his independent brand and has minimized incoming fire from Democrats. Bush is mired in the lowest sustained approval ratings in polling history. The war in Iraq is as unpopular as ever. Eight in 10 Americans see the nation as on the wrong track. And the teetering economy makes the election of a member of Bush's party exceedingly unlikely, according to statistical models of past elections.

"McCain at least has the credibility with independents to get them to take a second look," said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster. But he added: "Things will get worse for McCain."

From now until November, much of the presidential campaign will revolve around Democrats trying to equate a McCain victory with a third Bush term, and McCain trying to remain a breed apart.

"It's not a matter of, quote, separating," McCain said recently. "I think it's more a matter of presenting my own plan of action."

In the early stages of his general-election campaign, McCain is opting to avoid a sharp rupture with the White House. He has offered critiques of Bush on the response to Hurricane Katrina, global warming and the interrogation of terrorism suspects -- and on Tuesday he presented a nuanced difference on nonproliferation policy -- while backing the president's general approaches to Iraq, health care and tax policy.

But as this week's events make clear, McCain also plans to take advantage of Bush's considerable fundraising muscle to replenish his coffers for a tough general-election campaign in which he appears likely to be at a financial disadvantage.

As the campaign unfolds, White House and McCain aides are cooperating closely. Members of the communications staffs hold conference calls three or more times each week, and campaign manager Rick Davis talks daily with the top White House political aide, Barry Jackson, aides said.

McCain has not shunned congressional Republicans, either. When he met with the House Republican conference in February, he pledged to do all he could to make Boehner the House speaker and return the GOP to the majority. On April 11, Davis and senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin met with House Republican chiefs of staff. Four days later, Davis was back on Capitol Hill, meeting Republicans in the House whip organization.

Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith said communications aides from the House and Senate leadership and the McCain campaign hold daily morning conference calls. Higher-level aides get together usually once a week.

The idea is not to synchronize the Bush and McCain messages. There is a clear recognition on both sides that McCain's success depends on distinguishing himself from the president. The trick, aides said, is doing that without angering either Bush or his loyal supporters in the party, who are already suspicious of McCain for his sometimes tough critiques of the administration over the years.

When McCain gave a speech endorsing stronger action against global warming than Bush has pursued, the campaign gave White House officials an early sense of the speech's direction and provided a copy of the remarks beforehand. But such situations haven't always worked out smoothly.

When McCain traveled to New Orleans, it was clear he would be critical of the response to Hurricane Katrina. But in answering questions from reporters, McCain made the critique personal to Bush, causing angst at the White House.

On the trail, McCain echoes the president's talking points about the need to continue fighting in Iraq. But the Republican nominee is often highly critical of the president's execution of the war, especially in the early years.

"I don't think Senator McCain should be expected to define or defend the president's record," said a senior White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There are clearly issues where the president and Senator McCain have the same point of view, but there are also issues where McCain's principles lead him to a different direction."

"Does it bother us?" he asked. "No."

But rank-and-file House Republicans say McCain is holding them at arm's length. In a 20-page memo to House Republican leaders this month, Rep. Tom Davis (Va.) explained why.

"This year, to the extent McCain is elected, it will be in spite of his party's brand name," he wrote. ". . . Much of McCain's popularity is because he has stood up to his own party."

For Democrats, the preeminent political task of the summer is to meld McCain's brand with the GOP's. At an event in Las Vegas on Tuesday that was ostensibly about the ongoing mortgage crisis, Obama kept up that effort.

"He's holding a fundraiser with George Bush behind closed doors in Arizona. No cameras. No reporters," said the senator from Illinois. "And we all know why. Senator McCain doesn't want to be seen, hat in hand, with the president whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years."

With the national mood so sour, Obama's case is easy to make, independent political analysts said. Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, compared this year's election to the contest of 1980, when President Jimmy Carter was seeking reelection during the Iranian hostage drama, an energy crisis and a sagging economy. His opponent, Ronald Reagan, was seen widely as out of the traditional Republican mainstream, and uncertainty over this new breed kept Carter close until the end. Then voters decided en masse that they would rather take a chance on change than stick with the status quo.

Democratic pollster Peter Hart agreed with the analogy, with one caveat: The political environment of 2008 is far worse than that of 1980. Focus groups that he convened recently in Charlottesville pointed out the uncertainty independents have about Obama, but McCain had the most striking liability, Hart said: He is a Republican.

"John McCain is going to find that he is walking on a bed of nails," Hart said. "He's not going to make it across the track without being seen as a Republican in the Republican brand."

Polling director Jon Cohen contributed to this report.