Tuesday, January 29, 2008

JOHN MCCAIN

On Florida, McCain, and Fund

So here's my thoughts on Florida...

In most of the primaries so far, we've seen some sort of last-minute event or statement or moment that, in retrospect, seemed to clearly push the winner over the top. In Iowa, Mike Huckabee's "I'm such a nice guy, and I'd never run a negative ad, and oh, by the way, here it is " press conference wasn't the gaffe the pundits thought it was; it worked for Iowans. In New Hampshire, Hillary's tears gave her that emotional breakthrough. In Michigan, Mitt Romney pledged to bring back the glory days of the auto industry, and bring back all the good old days that the locals remember when his father was governor. Bill Clinton's attacks on Obama seem to have worked in Nevada, but backfired mightily in South Carolina.

In Florida, we've had three big events in the last couple of days: the Governor Crist endorsement of McCain; McCain's wildly over-the-top attack on Romney on the surge and the resulting pushback; and the Fund column suggesting McCain allegedly said he might not nominate a Supreme Court Justice who would wear his conservatism on his sleeve like Samuel Alito. But will last-minute events have as much influence with so many early voters in Florida? There's about a million folks who didn't get a chance to take those developments into account in their vote.

One other... odd thing about the Fund column — and I don't want this to be interpreted as questioning Fund's reporting, because he's a pro and I trust him. But if a potential GOP presidential nominee said that he was kind of iffy on Alito, one of the few true clear-cut victories for conservatism in recent years, wouldn't you think that by the time McCain finished the following sentence, everyone in the audience would have already typed into their Blackberries, "U WON'T BELIEVE WHAT McC JUST SAID" and begun preparing their furious denunciations? Wouldn't the conservatives who heard it be knocking people over in order to get in front of a camera to rip McCain for saying that? Or was this some odd crowd of conservatives who thought Alito was crassly vocal in his conservatism?

Flip side — if you look at McCain's statements yesterday, you'll notice he and his campaign are careful to not come out and say, "Fund and/or his sources are damn liars." This is a stunningly damaging quote, with little detail on where and when it was said, stuck in the middle of a story about how McCain can warm his relationship with the right, coming the day before the primary that could make McCain the clear frontrunner and the guy in the driver's seat for Super Tuesday. If Fund's quote is wrong, isn't there a strange lack of outrage from McCain?

UPDATE: A couple readers think this is setting up a Catch-22, where I'm finding McCain's response strangely muted, while over in the Corner some posters talk about McCain's temper. All I'm saying is that McCain either said it or he didn't; if he didn't say it — or if there was some sort of wildly different context to the quote — then somebody lied to John Fund, and somebody made sure a really damaging lie hit the news world 24 hours before the Florida primary. An act like that should generate some outrage.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Team McCain thinks I've lost my mind, pointing out that denials to Rich, Byron, and holding a conference call that addresses the quote constitutes no lack of outrage.

01/29 10:02 AMShare