As his own chances at the presidency look weaker than they once were, Arizona Sen. John McCain is playing a new role, sharpening his critiques on other presidential front-runners.
And while the campaign has all but abandoned one key early state, McCain is setting himself up for a strong push toward winning another. The new developments seem to show recognition from the campaign strategists that they have to get their first win somewhere, and to do so, they will need to take votes away from other candidates.
For McCain, there’s just something about New Hampshire. McCain won the state in 2000, and despite his stated commitment to participating in the Iowa caucuses this year, his campaign has long seen the Granite State as more favorable terrain.
Whether it is his own familiarity with the state, the relationships he’s built with the state’s opinion-makers over the years, or just that he prefers rolling hills of deciduous trees to rolling fields of golden corn, pundits and politicos alike say McCain is a different candidate in New Hampshire. He seems more relaxed, many say, and when he conducts a town hall meeting with a few dozen voters, McCain is back to being the maverick outsider New Hampshire voters chose seven years ago.
But unlike 2000, when McCain’s New Hampshire operation succeeded, this year the senator has to contend with two other Republicans who hail from nearby, and whose New York and Massachusetts accents aren’t the grating Texas twang. Like his last try, McCain needs to perform well in New Hampshire to keep his campaign going. Unlike his last try, he may not succeed.
McCain faces strong challenges for the votes of the nation’s first primary state from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, both of whom run ahead of the Arizonan in recent polls. And unlike previous years, the Republican front-runners seem to view New Hampshire as a must-win state, making their efforts all the more important.
The concept of one state making or breaking a race for the presidential nomination is nothing new. In 2004, as former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean surged in early state polls, former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt, whose entire campaign strategy rested on winning Iowa, threw most of his campaign treasury into taking Dean down. The result: Sen. John Kerry, who was viewed as staying above the fray, took Iowa, and with it, began a snowball effect that handed him the nomination.
This year, Romney in many ways parallels Dean. Both former New England governors and viewed as outsiders in their own parties. Dean found then, as Romney does now, that criticizing a party that has lost its way can pay off. Dean criticized fellow Democrats as “Bush-lite,” while Romney, in a recent advertisement, reminds Republican voters that “change begins with us.” Both saw themselves rise in early state polls.
Their language, too, bears striking resemblance. At a Democratic National Committee meeting in Washington in 2003, Dean worked the crowd in a frenzy, borrowing a line from the late Sen. Paul Wellstone when he said he represented the “Democratic wing of the Democratic party.” In Nevada, Romney mirrored the assertion. “Conservatives that have heard me time and again recognize that I do speak for the Republican wing of the Republican Party,” he said.
It remains, it seems, up to John McCain or Rudy Giuliani to disabuse Republican primary voters of that notion, should either hope to break Romney’s lead in New Hampshire.
Giuliani and Romney have skirmished frequently in recent weeks, most prominently on issues of taxes and spending. The two candidates each claim to have cut taxes while accusing the other of raising taxes and fees.
But both Romney and Giuliani have to overcome issues with the Republican base that have little to do with fiscal conservatism. Both have in the past made statements supportive of Roe v. Wade and gay rights, issues on which social conservatives vehemently disagree. Both are now tacking to the right, though Romney’s efforts seem more successful — last week, prominent evangelical leader Bob Jones III, grandson of the university’s namesake, announced he would back Romney.
McCain has come out strongest against Romney’s assertion of himself as the conservative standard bearer. “As we all know, when [Romney] ran for office in Massachusetts, being a Republican wasn’t much of a priority,” McCain told a crowd in Manchester, reported the Associated Press. “In fact, when he ran against Ted Kennedy, he said he didn’t want to return to the days of Reagan-Bush. I always was under the impression Ronald Reagan was a real Republican.”
In fact, McCain noted, Romney has admitted to supporting Democrats in the past, including 1992 Democratic presidential candidate Paul Tsongas and former New Hampshire Congressman Dick Swett.
McCain last week continued his assault on Romney, citing a recent debate gaffe as a sign of Romney’s “inexperience” and, when asked whether he meant Romney was too inexperienced to be president, responded, “Sure,” according to an influential South Carolina political blog.
Romney spokesman Kevin Madden took direct aim at McCain in response: “Governor Romney has run a state and balanced budgets, while other campaigns have only run a Senate office on Capitol Hill or have mismanaged their campaigns to the point that they are mired in debt.”
While Giuliani has the same, if not more severe, problems with conservatives that Romney has, McCain has yet to take serious aim at the New Yorker. Nor has he taken shots at former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee, who began his campaign last month and has been dogged by questions of commitment and ideological purity. But the difference is that McCain counts both men as personal friends; he and Giuliani had dinner late last year to discuss their presidential bids, while Thompson served as McCain’s national campaign co-chair in 2000.
The increasing bitterness of the Republican race, centered around three candidates’ struggles to win New Hampshire, is only likely to get worse in the coming months. The turning point, from running a positive campaign to a comparative campaign, could be an ominous sign for either McCain or Giuliani. As they both train their fire on Romney, one will likely become this year’s version of Dick Gephardt, whose campaign fell on the Dean grenade so that another candidate might survive to win the nomination.
The other could become this year’s version of John Kerry, staying above the fray, and out of harm’s way, bound onward to a general election.