`Happy Warrior' McCain Struggles as an Establishment Candidate

By Edwin Chen

Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- John McCain, who's spent 20 years in the Senate challenging Republican Party orthodoxy, is having a hard time establishing himself as its champion.

Through fund-raising prowess, endorsements and his standing in polls, McCain, 70, has tried to create an aura of inevitability around his presidential campaign; the free- wheeling ``Straight Talk Express'' bus caravan of his 2000 bid is now a buttoned-down juggernaut that's trying to please the Republicans' many factions.

It may not be working. Conservatives, especially religious activists with whom he clashed in the past, remain suspicious of him; meanwhile, some backers who admired his maverick streak are disillusioned with his appeals to the conservative base. Polls show him losing ground to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and the Arizonan seems visibly uneasy cast as a pillar of the Establishment.

``McCain has to adjust to his new-found role,'' said Scott Reed, a Washington political consultant who managed former Kansas Senator Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. McCain's effort to reach out to party constituencies is ``a lot different from sitting in the back of a bus throwing out red meat'' to his own supporters, Reed said. ``He's not comfortable with it, and he's not doing well at it.''

McCain, in an interview, said that somber times created by the Iraq war -- he's a strong supporter -- demand a different demeanor from 2000. ``I'm still a happy warrior,'' he said. ``But with the Iraq war, it's a little hard to be happy-go- lucky.''

Leading a Party

Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who is one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate, said ``the biggest change is that John now is trying to establish himself as the leader of a party, and not just a movement.''

That effort is complicated by leftover hard feelings from McCain's previous race, and his years in the Senate. Some party activists still haven't forgiven him for criticizing television evangelist Jerry Falwell in 2000, backing stem-cell research, opposing President George W. Bush's tax cuts and pushing a proposal that would give undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.

``He has to make the case that he's a true Reaganite and the best Reaganite,'' said Grover Norquist, a Republican activist who heads Americans for Tax Reform, a Washington-based anti-tax lobbying group, and who has expressed doubts about McCain's faith in tax-cutting.

`Odd Lapses'

The senator ``has to explain some odd lapses in his decisions, and why that won't happen again,'' Norquist said. ``This is not impossible, but this is work.''

Paul Weyrich, chairman of the Free Congress Foundation, a Washington-based organization dedicated to fighting what it calls ``moral decay,'' said that ``many social-issues conservatives have said to me that they will not vote for or support John McCain.'' McCain, Weyrich said, has ``made it clear that he hates the Religious Right.''

McCain's top lieutenants say their boss has never deviated from core Republican principles. Mark Salter, his Senate chief of staff and collaborator on several of his books, including the 2000 biography ``Faith of My Fathers,'' said McCain has ``always been pro-life, for a strong defense, against gay marriage.''

Scrutiny on Abortion

McCain has found his opposition to abortion under especially close scrutiny. Though he says he is philosophically opposed to abortion, McCain in his first White House run opposed repealing Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that gave women the right to terminate a pregnancy. He said that ``thousands of young American women would be performing illegal and dangerous operations.''

This year, as McCain has tried to make his peace with evangelical leaders, he has said Roe should be overturned.

McCain has named former Governor Frank Keating of Oklahoma, who has close ties to Bush, as his ambassador to religious activists. Keating is trying to reach out to the movement's leaders, such as James Dobson, head of Colorado Springs, Colorado-based Focus on the Family. In a recent interview on a Dallas Christian radio station, Dobson said that he couldn't support McCain ``under any circumstances.''

McCain already has made amends with Falwell, whom he once denounced as an ``agent of intolerance,'' and appeared at the May 2006 commencement ceremonies of Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Costing Him Support

McCain's repositioning may be costing him some support, especially with the independents who once flocked to his side. A USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in Feb. 9-11 put Giuliani ahead by 40 percent to 24 percent among Republicans and independents who lean Republican; in January, Giuliani's lead in the same poll was 31 percent to 27 percent.

Merle Black, a political science professor at Atlanta's Emory University, said McCain may have lost many of the independents, and even Democrats, who crossed party lines in states where it's allowed to vote for him during primaries seven years ago.

``In 2000, he ran strong among independents and Democrats,'' Black said. Those voters likely ``will not be voting in the Republican primaries this time, and that may cost him some support, especially if he's perceived as moving to the right.''

A Closer Race

His strategic shift may not be such a big impediment in early primary and caucus states, which have a disproportionate say in selecting party presidential nominees. In New Hampshire, site of the first-in-the-nation primary, a CNN/WMUR poll conducted Feb. 1-5 showed McCain with 28 percent support to Giuliani's 27 percent. A Jan. 29-Feb. 1 American Research Group survey in Iowa, whose caucuses precede New Hampshire, found Giuliani with 27 percent support to McCain's 22 percent.

As he seeks to make peace with party activists, McCain dismisses the notion that he's strayed from his reformist roots. ``I just reject that,'' he said in the interview. ``When you look at my positions on the issues, none of them have changed.''

``Of course I'm reaching out to all parts of my party,'' he said. ``But there's a difference between reaching out and pandering.''

Rick Davis, the campaign's chief executive officer, said the senator is ``exactly the same guy that he was in 2000, but it's hard to have a political rally with balloon drops after giving a serious speech on Iraq on the Senate floor.''

Letting McCain Be McCain

As McCain spends more time campaigning, Davis and Salter say, the antidote for declining poll numbers will be a less- structured style that lets McCain be McCain.

The senator's favorite forum in 2000 was the town-hall meeting, in which he'd trade quips and banter with the audience while providing crisp answers to their questions. Glimmers of the old McCain began surfacing during a recent campaign swing.

At a Feb. 21 Los Angeles appearance with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has taken aggressive action to combat global warming, McCain was asked about Bush's record on the issue.

``Terrible,'' McCain said.

And the Iraq war?

``A train wreck.''

The next day, McCain declared: ``We're back on the happy- warrior route.''

-- Editor: Walczak (mgf/rxj/kjo).

To contact the reporter on this story: Edwin Chen in Washington at echen32@bloomberg.net .

Last Updated: February 27, 2007 00:05 EST

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