LOS ANGELES - - It was one of those radio interviews where the interviewer asks you deep and penetrating questions and you try to sound like you care about the answers.
“So what will the results of Super Tuesday be?” the interviewer asked me.
Which one is that? I said.
“March 7!” she said. “Aren’t you supposed to know this stuff?”
Yeah, yeah, I said. I just forgot for a second. Let’s see, March 7. Well, I think it’s going to be either Gore or Bradley or McCain or Bush.
“But that’s everybody!” she said.
You forgot Alan Keyes, I said. I am pretty sure Alan Keyes is not going to win.
Unless there is an upset, in which case he will.
She shook her head and looked down at her legal pad. “What is the biggest problem you face as a national political reporter constantly on the road following the presidential candidates?” she asked.
Guess, I said.
“Is it the constant need to be fair and accurate?” she said.
Naw, I said.
“The challenge of offering context and analysis in an ever-changing political environment?” she asked.
Not even close, I said. It’s laundry.
“Laundry?” she said.
Yeah, I said. We are in a different hotel almost every night. We get in late at night and leave early in the morning. So how can we ever get our laundry done?
“I never thought of that,” she said, edging away from me. “So how do you get it done?”
Well, I know one guy who used to Fed Ex his dirty laundry back home with a note asking his wife to wash it and Fed Ex it back to him.
“And that worked?” the radio person asked.
Naw, she divorced him, I said. Me, I just throw my dirty underwear out and buy new underwear every day.
“Isn’t that expensive?” she asked.
Not if you’re clever, I said. Which is why I disguise it on my expenses as “Lunch with Al Gore.”
“Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?” she asked.
What are they going to do call Al Gore and ask him if he had lunch with me? Al Gore doesn’t return phone calls. I know a guy back in Washington who every month puts on his expense account “Drinks with the Supreme Court.” He figures in three more years, he’ll have enough for a Lexus.
“Well, thank you very much,” she said. “Having you on the air has been very…instructive.”
Wait, wait, I said. Ask me the second biggest problem I face.
“Uh, never getting to see your wife or children?” she said.
Gosh, I never thought of that, I said. No, I was thinking about food.
“There’s not enough food on the campaign?” she asked.
Au contraire, I said. There is too much food. There is food at every event and
food on the plane or the bus and so we usually end up eating six or seven meals a day. No matter how much you weigh at the beginning of the campaign, you weigh 20 or 30 pounds more by the end.
“Why is there so much food?” she asked.
I think the candidates want us stuffed and dull-witted, I said. They don’t want us lean and hungry. Besides if we are all really fat, they can easily run away when we ask them questions and we won’t be able to run after them.
“I never realized journalism was so complex,” she said.
They don’t teach you this stuff in school, I said.
“Thank goodness,” she said. “And with that, we will conclude our interview and thank you again for…”
Wait, wait, I said. You haven’t asked about haircuts!
“I don’t want to know,” she said.
When we get really bored, we give each other haircuts, I said. I gave Tom Brokaw a buzz cut once.
“I don’t think you have told me a word of truth in this entire interview,” she said.
Finally, I said, you have learned something about journalism.
WASHINGTON - - At the beginning of his South Carolina campaign, still riding the crest of his stunning New Hampshire victory, McCain was cocky. “I’d like to have the Democratic nomination (too),” he said one day on his bus. “I think I’m better than anything they got going.”
But by the end of the South Carolina campaign, McCain was visibly weary, often tightly shutting his eyes and rubbing his face with his hands. A fatigued McCain told me in Charleston: “We’re going forward, not only to Arizona and Michigan, but we are going up in the polls in Washington (which votes Feb. 29). We’re in great shape there and I couldn’t be happier.”
McCain said his decision to pull his own negative ads was one he did not regret, even though political experts told him it was risky to do so considering that George Bush’s negative adds were whacking him hard on every station every day. “If doing that (i.e. pulling the ads) didn’t work, then I live with the consequences and I am proud of what we did,” he said.
McCain also hinted that the negative nature of the campaign run against him in the South might help him elsewhere. “Never has anyone seen such a nasty campaign as what was conducted in South Carolina,” he said. “There is a consequence to that. Sure, negative campaigning might give you a victory, but what does it do to the candidate? It has to hurt the candidate, not just in the general election, but in further primaries. People just don’t like that behavior.”
Maybe they don’t like it, but they sure seem affected by it, which is why politicians continue to do it.
McCain’s appeal to non-Republican voters - - his best hope for victory - - was effectively used against him in South Carolina.
“We let Republicans know that their party was in danger of a hostile takeover,” Bush spokesperson Karen Hughes told me.
But the McCain campaign has now vowed to learn from their mistakes. Just as Bush re-tooled his campaign after New Hampshire to stress his record as a “reformer” so the McCain campaign is poised to re-emphasize McCain’s conservatism.
“John McCain represents the conservatism of hope and George Bush represents the conservatism of fear,” McCain chief adviser Mike Murphy said. “South Carolina was the toughest possible state for McCain. Gov. Bush took the low road in the high country of South Carolina. We will keep our positive message, but we are not going to let people get fooled in these other states that are coming up.”
McCain says he will stick to his pledge not to run negative ads, but he intends to bash Bush every day. But for McCain the calendar now becomes the enemy.
While there are a number of primaries coming up that allow cross-over voting for delegates - - Georgia, Massachusetts, and Washington among them - - some large states including California, New York and Ohio will allow only registered Republicans to vote for delegates on March 7.
Even though the South Carolina primary attracted enormous media attention, most of the rest of the country has yet to focus on the presidential race and that is a problem for the McCain camp.
Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, said: “These two states (New Hampshire and South Carolina) knew a lot about our candidate. Further out, people know less and have seen him less. That’s a concern. They just don’t know McCain and that is a pressure on us.”
COLUMBIA, S.C. - - A bar is not usually a good place to watch a presidential debate.
You have one drink and then a second and maybe a third and pretty soon the candidates start making sense to you. This should be considered a warning sign.
But John McCain decided to have a big debate-watching party in a downtown bar and I went to see what kind of crowd it would draw.
As it turned out, it was like the audiences at McCain rallies: a mix of young and old, pretty well-dressed, and almost entirely white.
I sat down at the bar and started watching the debate on a row of TV screens set into the wall. Almost immediately the guy sitting next to me said: “You old enough to remember Kennedy?”
I admitted that I was, although I was a kid when he was killed.
“He was more than a politician,” the guy said. “He had character. Real character.”
I guess so, I said. We shook hands and exchanged names.
He said his name was Gary Cadle, he was 52, had been in the Navy, in the Seabees, for 28 years, had served two tours of duty in Vietnam and now had a travel agency with his wife in Columbia.
He was, like many people to be found at McCain rallies, a Democrat.
“I’d never vote for a Republican,” Cadle said.
McCain is a Republican, I pointed out.
Cadle shrugged. “He’s different,” he said.
If John McCain has any hope of defeating George W. Bush it is by “expanding the universe”, which means he must draw independents and Democrats into the Republican primaries.
This is not possible in many states, but it was possible in New Hampshire, where McCain slaughtered Bush by 19 percentage points, and it is possible in South Carolina, which votes this Saturday.
Bush has the support of the Republican leadership in the state and that of many religious conservatives. McCain is supported by many veterans - - South Carolina has more veterans per capita than any state in the union - - and by some independents and Democrats.
Who will win will depend on how many people vote. If the numbers are small with only Republicans going to the polls, Bush will almost certainly win. If the numbers are large, with all sorts of voters going to the polls, McCain will probably win.
But why should independents and Democrats vote for a man like McCain, a man with a very conservative voting record?
“Character,” Cadle said. “And McCain just seems more…adult. Presidential. And he is the only guy willing to reform the system. He is the only guy, I think, who is willing to put the country ahead of his party.”
Bush is telling voters that Democrats like Cadle are going to vote for McCain in the primary only to give Al Gore, should he win the Democratic nomination, an easier target in the fall. But Cadle says that is not true.
“I’m voting for McCain this Saturday and I’m voting for McCain in the fall,” he said. Cadle pointed up at the TV screen where the candidates were still debating. “Everybody is a patriot now,” he said. “But when the Vietnam War was going on, McCain volunteered. He didn’t dodge the draft. (Bush was a pilot in the in the Air National Guard in Texas.) He was a patriot back then and he is a patriot now.”
About an hour after the debate ended, McCain came to the bar where about a hundred supporters were still on hand to greet him.
“If we win here, nobody is going to stop us,” McCain said. “The same way that Ronald Reagan governed with Reagan Democrats, that’s what we are reconstituting here. This used to be a campaign. Now it is a crusade.”
Cadle stood in the crowd and applauded.
“I’ve never volunteered to work before in a political campaign,” he said. “But
I’m volunteering to work in this one. This campaign is different. This campaign is about character.”
COLUMBIA, S.C. - - Would you drive 236.1 miles to hear George W. Bush give a speech? No, neither would if I were living in the real world.
But I am not living in the real world these days. I am living in Campaign World.
In Campaign World, I fly to a new state just about every week, pick up a rental car (I have almost - - but not quite - - learned the difference between a Chevy Lumina and a Buick Century) and drive hundreds of miles to hear candidates speak.
And it occurred to me as I was blasting down a highway Tuesday to Tigerville, S.C, that I would never drive this far at home to hear anybody speak.
If, in Washington, somebody stuck his head in my office and said: “Want to drive 236.1 miles to hear George W. Bush give a speech?” I would throw something at him.
Are you nuts? I would say. Who would drive that far to hear anyone give a speech, let alone Dubya? Things are looking so grim for him these days that he is seriously considering driving house-to-house to give his speeches. So I figure I can just wait until he comes to my block to hear him speak.
But in Campaign Land you find yourself doing weird things. Rules of good sense do not apply. I drive hundreds of miles to hear speeches I would not normally hear and I speed to get there.
At home, I try very hard to keep pretty near the speed limit (unless a large truck is roaring down on top of me and threatening to mate with my car.)
In Campaign Land, however, I make up my own speed limits. I am invulnerable to the laws of Man. I am The Press.
So I make death-defying U-turns that I would never make at home. And I park wherever I choose.
Why? Because all the rules are suspended in Campaign Land. We, who travel after these candidates, feel like Lords of the Universe, making up our own code of conduct as we go along.
Recently, a reporter I know who is covering Bill Bradley needed a telephone to hook his computer to and could not find one. He was in a residential neighborhood and he simply went up to a house, rang the bell and explained that he was a reporter covering the presidential campaign and needed to use their phone - - immediately.
In the real world, this reporter might have been met with a door slammed in his face or at the very least a vicious dog.
In Campaign Land, the flustered woman who answered the door ushered him inside, let him use the phone and even offered him coffee.
When he left, (ital) she (unital) thanked (ital) him.(unital)
So I drive 236.1 miles (at excessive speeds) to hear George Bush speak and when I get there I cannot find parking. So I park illegally.
“You can’t park there!” a man shouts at me.
It’s OK, I say.
“But that’s my lawn!” he says.
It’s OK, I say, getting out of the car. I’m the press. I cover presidential candidates for a living.
“Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry.”
WASHINGTON - - Reporters really hate it when they spend time kissing up to the wrong people and now there is a mad scramble to kiss up to John McCain ‘s staff.
For months, the media has carried articles on the geniuses in the George W. Bush campaign. By my count, there have been almost as many profiles of Bush’s inner circle as there have been of Bush himself.
Such articles are known in the news business as “beat sweeteners.”
You do a pleasing profile on a staff member and you hope that the staff member will return your phone calls in the future and - - hope springs eternal - - that he might actually tell you things.
So what happened? Bush got creamed in New Hampshire and all of the sudden all these reporters found out they have been kissing the wrong mistletoe. So now we are beginning to see the first McCain staff stories, explaining how there are geniuses behind his campaign, too.
And maybe there are. But what John McCain mostly has going for him is John McCain. Actually, he has more than that. He has the John McCain story.
Early campaigning is made up of candidates trying to sell a compelling story to the public. But McCain entered the race with his story - - that of a Vietnam hero - - ready-made.
He always says that you need more than a story, and that is true, but McCain 's story is so compelling because it allows Americans to think about Vietnam and not have ambiguous feelings: You can easily consider McCain a hero without worrying about whether you were for the war or against it.
McCain 's wounds heal. So first came the story and next came the delivery system.
While other candidates followed the strategies of past presidential campaigns - - keep tight control of the message and make the media deal with handlers rather than the candidate - - McCain invited reporters on the bus and talked to them nonstop.
His staff is often not even in earshot. McCain spends so much more time with reporters than with his own advisers that at one recent stop Rick Davis, the campaign chairman, came up to me and asked: "Did McCain make any news in the back of the bus?"
McCain’s tactic of total access was refreshing, different, and seemingly authentic.
"When we started out, McCain had Kosovo (he made an early call for decisive U.S. action there), campaign finance reform, and 5 1/2 years in the Hanoi Hilton," Dan Schnur, his communications director, said. "But the open access accelerated interest in McCain . That led to improving poll numbers, which led to increased fund-raising."
And because McCain appeared to be such a maverick, he attracted the support of independents and Democrats, many of whom assume that he is some kind of moderate, when, in fact, his voting record is that of a hard-edged conservative.
"We've done a hell of a job fooling them, haven't we?" McCain said at a recent dinner and laughed. He went on: "I am a proud conservative Republican, but I've had a lot of people who come up to me and say, 'Look, I don't agree with you on a number of issues, but I'm going to be voting for you.' There's a whole lot of them that come up and say that."
Schnur, who shares McCain 's penchant for finding wisdom in movies, likes to talk about “The Man Who Would Be King,” in which the natives think Sean Connery is a god - -until his bride bites him and the trickle of blood reveals him to be just a man.
"If people see that trickle of blood, it will be hard for him (Bush) to go on," Schnur told me before the New Hampshire primary. "If there is a split in the first four, March 7 (when there will be 15 primaries) will be decisive, and I have never seen a state better suited to a candidate than California is to McCain ."
So armed with his huge victory in New Hampshire, McCain hurtles around the country, holding town meeting after town meeting, telling his story, fending off counterattacks, and waiting for March 7.
He has already made George Bush bleed and pretty soon, McCain figures, he will have his chance to finish him off.