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We're ready for you, John," says Greg Stevens, a media consultant. He and Sen. John McCain stand on the grounds of a high school in Arizona, about to shoot a public-service announcement on gun safety. Stevens is best known for the infamous Dukakis-in-a-tank commercial, which helped George Bush win in 1988 by making Michael Dukakis look silly with an Army helmet engulfing his head. He also shot McCain's "biography" commercial, which captured the senator's life story — including his five and a half years in a Vietnam POW camp — in a thirty-second spot and introduced him to a national audience during last year's presidential campaign.
Through the years, McCain has shot so many of these, he delivers his lines with professional quality on the first take. But this spot, sponsored by the Americans for Gun Safety Foundation, will be shown in 2,500 movie theaters this summer, so they do a dozen or more takes before they're through.
McCain's interest in gun safety at this time cannot be separated from his bigger political agenda, which involves alliances with some of the most prominent Democrats in the Senate, including Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, the Democrats' 2000 vice-presidential nominee. In March, McCain approached Lieberman to co-sponsor a bill now called McCain-Lieberman, which proposes to close the gunshow loophole by requiring that customers at gun shows submit to background checks just as they would if they were buying a gun in a store, and Lieberman was happy to come on board. McCain's public-service announcement on guns will air at about the time McCain-Lieberman is introduced in the Senate.
Last February, the Arizona senator first showed how troublesome he could be to Bush when he won in a stunning landslide in New Hampshire. McCain could have pulled off the unthinkable and captured the Republican nomination had it not been for the South Carolina primary, which saw one of the nastiest clashes in recent American politics. Bush may have thought then that he had vanquished McCain, but now it seems their contest is only beginning.
This spring, during Bush's first 100 days, McCain went against the wishes of the White House by not only introducing but — against all odds — pushing through McCain-Feingold, the most sweeping campaign-finance reform to pass the Senate since the political overhaul brought on by the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s. Now McCain is assembling an agenda on gun control, health care, the environment and more, with such strategically important Democrats as Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the rising star of his party, and elder statesman Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Why has McCain become so ardent on such typically Democratic issues as patients' rights? "Throughout the presidential campaign, people stood up at townhall meeting after townhall meeting and talked about how they had been mistreated by their HMOs," McCain says. "I promised them I'd do whatever I could to get a patients' bill of rights, so that the decisions are in the hands of doctors and not accountants. I feel an obligation here. I mean, just because I lost doesn't mean I renege on the commitments I made. I didn't say, 'By the way, if I win ...' I said, 'I promise you I'll do whatever I can.' "
His motivations may or may not be political as well, but one thing is certain. "John McCain is not going away," says one Republican insider. "If the Bush people had worked harder at salvaging the relationship with him, we wouldn't be in the position we are now. That was poor political strategy." More to the point, is there any way McCain could use a series of successes to run again for the presidency? "I don't think that John is thinking about it right now," says Peter Rinfret, one of McCain's national finance co-chairs in his 2000 presidential bid, "but I couldn't rule it out." Greg Stevens is more practical. "It's hard to see a scenario where he could run again, but you never say never," he contends. "But if he doesn't rule out running again, everyone is going to think everything he's doing is to run for president. He cares deeply about these issues."
John Weaver, McCain's chief political strategist, is passionate, if guarded. "Give us some credit for being smart," he says. "You can't think about running against a sitting president in the primaries." Why the distinction — in the primaries? "Because that's a distinction I want to make." Does that mean McCain would consider running as an Independent? "It's hard to imagine such a thing," Weaver says. "But if you ask any leading independent pollster not tied to the White House or the DNC, John McCain is the most popular political figure in the country. I do think, had we done that [run as an Independent] in 2000, we could have won."
With all of these iffy denials, has the McCain camp not at least contemplated another run for the presidency? According to one Republican source, two of Bush's key political advisers, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, believe McCain will run against Bush in 2004. Weaver says there has been no discussion by the senator with his staff about running again for president. He adds, "Having said that, is it the unspeakable object in the room that we just don't address? Perhaps. Sometimes you've just got to let events take care of themselves."
As expected, McCain himself downplays any presidential ambitions. "It was the greatest experience of my life," he says on the schoolyard set. "It was wonderful. But I cannot envision running again. We captured a magic moment. There was an outpouring of affection. I'm sixty-four. I'd be sixty-eight if I ran again."
"Even in eight years, you'd only be seventy-two," I point out.
"Ugh," McCain says.
"How old was Ronald Reagan when he was first elected?"
"Seventy-something," McCain says.
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McCain's office, in one of Phoenix's countless business complexes, is a surprisingly modest room decorated in a calculatedly plain manner. Before an old wooden desk sit two ordinary-looking wooden chairs. Here he discusses the piece of legislation that has become an obsession in his last six years: McCain-Feingold. The bill, passed by the Senate, bans the unlimited "soft" money individuals and organizations can contribute to political parties and allows only "hard" money, capped at $2,000 per individual. The bill also requires the disclosure of contributors to so-called issue ads that run sixty days or less prior to Election Day. How did he pass a bill, opposed by much of his own party, that he has been trying to pass for so long?
"There was a combination of factors, including good luck," McCain says. "Napoleon said you make your own luck; still, timing was fortunate. The fact that [Senate Minority Leader] Tom Daschle held the Democrats — if there's an unsung hero, it's Tom Daschle. The pressure from the presidential campaign also helped. There was also a desire on the part of the Republican leadership to get this thing off the table, because we had made it clear we were going to keep coming back and coming back." McCain pauses. "Oh, one other factor," he continues. "Denise Rich. There was the appearance of a pardon being bought. When people heard about a million dollars going to the DNC, they thought there was a connection. By the way, I don't know if there was a connection — I don't know if I'll ever know — but the appearance was very critical."
House Majority Whip Tom DeLay has been adamant that he will kill McCain's bill — a fortunate development for the Bush forces, since, according to McCain chief of staff Mark Salter, "the White House would be very happy if the bill never came to the president." But DeLay doesn't have to kill the House version of McCain-Feingold, known as Shays-Meehan; all he has to do is alter it enough for the bill to end up in conference. Many times, bills remain in conference so long, they end up dying. "If McCain-Feingold goes to conference and the Republicans try to screw it up," McCain warns, "we'll just shut down the Senate again. I mean, look, I'm not going to let it sit in conference." Once the bill passes both the House and the Senate, it will go to President Bush to be signed into law. Will Bush sign a bill about which he has expressed ambivalence? "I hope so," McCain says, "but he's been very unclear about that. He said he'd like to have a bill he could sign, but he's not said if this one is it or not."
Next up will be McCain-Lieberman, the bill to close the gunshow loophole. "I don't understand the logic," McCain says, "that says if you go to a guy selling 500 guns in his shop, you have to have a background check, but if you go to a guy selling five guns in a gun show, you don't." Bush has been an outspoken critic of any type of gun-control legislation, dating back to his 1994 gubernatorial campaign, when he defeated Ann Richards, thanks in part to a campaign promise to let Texans carry concealed handguns. As governor he signed not only the concealed-carry bill but another law expanding it to allow guns into churches, hospitals and amusement parks. Even after the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, he declined to support a Democratic bill that would have closed the gunshow loophole in Texas. If McCain-Lieberman comes to his desk, he will face more pressure than he did in Texas to give in.
McCain, Edwards and Kennedy have also already introduced a patients' bill of rights — a piece of legislation that Bush has expressly threatened to veto. He does not like, for example, the McCain version's $5 million cap on punitive damages, supporting a number "well below" that, according to a statement. But McCain-Edwards is still, as Salter points out, "extremely close" to the patients' bill of rights that became law in Texas while Bush was governor. Bush first vetoed that bill, then allowed it to go into law without signing it, then took credit for it during the general election. Should McCain and the Democrats pass the federal bill, Bush could be put in the position of having to sign a bill he refused to sign in Texas. "The president has said he will veto McCain-Kennedy [-Edwards]," Weaver says. "I hope that was just some hotheaded staff over in the White House who got him to say that without providing him with the facts. We'll pass the bill, and he'll have to deal with it. We do have the votes."
McCain is aware of the politics involved. "Edwards and Kennedy and I have made an agreement," he says, "and we're hoping the White House will negotiate with us. I certainly hope so, but we are going to push the legislation. I feel a total obligation here."
In addition, McCain has had concerns about Bush's tax cut, which delays relief for most taxpayers for several years. "We've always differed on the amount of money that went to the wealthiest one percent," McCain says. "I still have concerns about what we can do for working men and women and working families. I also think that now, as opposed to during the campaign, when the economy was booming, we need a quick stimulus. I've heard a $60 billion proposal, an $80 billion proposal. But again, I'd like to see it go to the working men and women."
To rally public support for causes like gun safety and the patients' bill of rights, McCain plans to use a media campaign, as he did on campaign finance. For McCain-Feingold, he spearheaded newspaper ads and television commercials in targeted states, among them Florida and Texas, urging voters to lobby their senators to pass the bill. For McCain-Lieberman, McCain will participate in a similar coordinated media effort, contending that the Second Amendment not only gives Americans the right to bear arms but also requires gun owners to use guns in a responsible way. For McCain-Edwards, another media effort will be launched. The theme will be simple: Because of HMO misconduct, America needs a patients' bill of rights.
The hot-button national issue McCain will tackle next is already seen by many political observers as a Bush weak point: the environment. "I'm becoming more of an environmentalist," McCain says. "Since the campaign, he's become engaged in the question of global warming," Salter says. "Is the greenhouse effect really happening? Are things melting? There's obviously a scientific dispute. But the senator has come to believe in the concept of global warming." As a result, on May 1st, McCain held the fourth in a series of hearings on global warming through the Commerce Committee, which he chairs — the first steps to eventual proposed legislation.
McCain's deepened concern about global warming occurs at the same time that Bush has broken a campaign promise on it. Last fall, Bush said he would seek mandatory regulations for carbon-dioxide emissions (a major contributor to global warming). But in February, he announced that he won't push for emissions reductions and that he will not support the Kyoto international agreement on green-house-gas emissions. McCain's hearings may bring more public attention to this issue.
"Of course, John McCain is hurting Bush," says one Republican. "After the primaries, the Bush people all said, 'We hate John McCain.' Anyone for John McCain was on the Bush hit list. McCain has just used that as fuel for the fire. He said, 'OK, I'll get you good.' And that's what he's doing. I mean, Bush will be forced to sign that damn thing" — McCain-Feingold — "which he doesn't want to do."
This portends a feud. "I'm sure they hate each other because they fought for the same job, and one won and one lost," says Jim Pinkerton, the director of research for Bush's father's 1988 presidential campaign, who later worked in the senior Bush White House's policy-planning office. "I should say, more precisely, I'm sure Bush dislikes McCain and McCain hates Bush." Part of this conflict might arise from the profound differences in style between the two camps. "The McCainites are Shi'ites," says Mark McKinnon, Bush's media consultant during the presidential campaign. "They are true believers. They are passionate. The McCain guys are more like soldiers, while the Bush crowd is more family. The people around President Bush are longtime loyalists. They're real solid professionals. They're organized and disciplined. A very disciplined bunch."
Behind the scenes, Bush supporters in the White House have attempted to block John Weaver from being hired in several 2002 races. So far, the only obvious public response to McCain has been from the rightwing media, principally Rush Limbaugh. On a regular basis, Limbaugh, who enjoyed a close relationship with the Bush forces during the presidential campaign, pounds away at McCain for being a Democrat in disguise. "He's hysterical," McCain says about Limbaugh that day in his office. "One reason he attacks me is that there is nothing worse than a heretic. In the Middle Ages, the Church always punished the heretic a lot more than they did the followers of Islam. Followers of Mohammed could be saved, but a heretic ..." McCain stops. "You have to ignore him [Limbaugh]. The best way to not let it get to you is, don't listen. If you let it get to you, you get down on that level, and that's one thing I can't do. So I block it out — ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent, I mutter to myself, 'Gggggggrrrrrrrrr.' "
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It started In New Hampshire," one Republican says about the Bush-McCain war. "The Bush camp doesn't want any challenge to its supremacy. That's why they didn't like Bob Dole and Ronald Reagan. The mere fact that McCain challenged Bush in the primaries was enough to cause bad blood — and he bested them in the New Hampshire primary. The Bush people are also aggravated that the McCain people act like he's still running for president and that they refuse to acknowledge Bush as the leader of the party."
"McCain felt Bush took unfair advantage of him in the South Carolina primary," adds Ed Rollins, a political consultant and commentator. "This is a guy who lived by a code, and he feels that that code was violated." Members of the McCain camp are still reeling. "[The South Carolina primary] was the ugliest thing I've ever seen," John Weaver says. "Among his staff, his advisers and his friends, it is something we will never forget — not ever."
South Carolina was indeed ugly. In a radio spot paid for by a national antiabortion group, McCain, who is pro-life, was depicted as a secret supporter of abortion rights. "So if you want a strong pro-life president, don't vote for John McCain," the announcer warned. Around the same time, J. Thomas Burch Jr., chairman of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition, told an audience that McCain — who spent five and a half years being tortured in the Hanoi Hilton — had not helped veterans after his return to America but had "come home and forgotten us." Bush stood silently at Burch's side, never challenging his accusations.
There was more, too. At McCain rallies, Bush infiltrators inched up next to McCain fans and suggested he was no war hero. Some Bush supporters — not obviously connected to the campaign — circulated fliers saying that McCain was "the fag candidate" and that he would hire openly gay people for his administration. Another flier said McCain had fathered an illegitimate child. Then Bush appropriated McCain's signature issue, saying that he — Bush — was the real reformer. Indeed, Bush was a "reformer with results," as the Bush campaign began to advertise.
McCain's answer to all of this was to run an ad that said Bush "twists the truth like Clinton." When the public response seemed to indicate that McCain had gone too far, he pulled the ad. "What we did was disarm ourselves," Greg Stevens says. The end result: Bush beat McCain 53-42. McCain was furious. "I will not take the low road to the highest office in the land," he said in his concession speech, one of the harshest speeches he has ever made. "I want the presidency in the best way, not the worst way. ... My friends, I say to you I am a uniter, not a divider. I don't just say it, I live it."
After Bush won the nomination, about sixty House members signed a letter to Bush asking him to pick McCain as a running mate, and according to several sources close to him, McCain would have accepted if asked. He did campaign for Bush in the general election, especially on the West Coast. But then, once elected, Bush ignored him for a Cabinet post, even though some party higher-ups felt McCain should have been considered for secretary of defense.
Not surprisingly, then, when McCain showed up at the White House during the first week of the Bush presidency for what he believed was a private meeting with Bush in the family living quarters, he was snubbed. Bush met with him, along with members of the Bush staff, in the Oval Office. After this, in March, McCain went on to submit McCain-Feingold as he had planned, even though some Republicans wanted him to wait until the fall.
Today, does McCain want to say anything about the South Carolina primary, the turning point in the presidential campaign? "Anything I say, I will portray myself as a sore loser," he offers, "and Americans don't like a sore loser. I'll let history judge it."
The PSA has wrapped, and I am riding with McCain as his state director, Lawrence Pike, drives him to a dental appointment. As we move through the streets of Phoenix, McCain talks about his life and career.
"I'm sure in some ways I deserve that label," he says about the frequent claim that he's a political maverick, "because I've taken some positions that are at best independent and sometimes in contradiction to the majority of my party. My view is, I really am of the party of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the Great Reformer, the Great Environmentalist. I think that I adhere closer to these principles than some of my colleagues."
"How do you respond when people say that, given the circumstances of your life, you're an American hero?"
"My great privilege was to serve in the company of heroes," McCain says bluntly. "I was able to observe a thousand acts of courage and compassion and love. That's the great privilege of my life. I've made many, many mistakes in my life, both in prison and out of prison. I'm far from a perfect individual. I'm far from a hero in my view, because of the many failings I have shown from time to time."
"You mean you don't consider your life heroic?"
"No," McCain says. "Not in the slightest."
"So how do you feel when someone says you're a hero?"
"Embarrassed. Slightly embarrassed."
We've arrived at the dentist's office.
"How would you describe your relationship with President Bush?"
"I think it's cordial," McCain says, "and I will do everything in my power to work with him as president of the United States, recognizing that my first obligation is to the American people."
"Did you want the vice presidency?"
"No. If Bush had sat down and said, 'I need you as vice president in order to run the country,' of course I would have said yes. But I made it clear to him that I didn't want to be vice president. So I pretty well ensured the question would never be asked. And it was never asked."
"Did you want to be named secretary of defense?"
"No," McCain says. "I'm very happy in the Senate. I think that's where the action is. That way, I can always speak my mind."
From RS870 — June 7, 2001