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As John McCain heads toward Super Tuesday, he has to decide: will he try and out-conservative George W. Bush in an effort to build his support in the Republican base or will he continue to run on the insurgent message of reform that has paid off so handsomely with those outside that base, Independents and disaffected Democrats? In the end, this choice is less about campaign tactics than about the campaign's soul.
If the first strategy prevails and McCain rolls into California sounding like a cross between Steve Forbes and Gary Bauer -- railing about abolishing the IRS and touting his anti-abortion bona fides -- he will both lose California and undermine the core of his appeal by acting like one more pandering politician just trying to get through the next week (see Bush's campaign in South Carolina).
The second strategy can include appealing to the Republican base if McCain runs a general election campaign that ignores Bush and tears into Al Gore. "We are Al Gore's worst nightmare," said McCain during his victory speech in Arizona. It's the sentiment of both a reformer looking to clean up the system, and a candidate in touch with the deepest longings of his party's conservative base. Even more than they want to get rid of the IRS, the GOP faithful want to get rid of Clinton-Gore.
If McCain wants some red meat to toss to conservative Republicans, all he has to do is repeat like a mantra what he said in Arizona: "In November, I will beat Al Gore like a drum." And it's not idle rhetoric: even before winning in Michigan, polls showed him trouncing the vice president by 24 points in a head-to-head match-up, compared to Bush's 5 point margin over Gore. And it's no mystery why: Bush has decided to swing wide, all the way out to Bob Jones and Pat Robertson, and voters in the middle have decided not to let him back. He's a panderer with results.
McCain, on the other hand, can make March 7th a referendum on taking back our democracy by challenging the political establishment -- both the presumptive Democratic nominee, and those backers of the once-presumptive GOP nominee who, as they've demonstrated over the last month, would rather lose than reform. But if he insists on staying within the tattered pine box of the conservative v. liberal debate, he'll end up getting buried in it -- the Bush people will make sure of that.
The best news coming out of Michigan for McCain was that 28% of those who went to the polls were first-time voters. And, even more significant, half of them were between 18 and 29-years old -- the very voters that McCain has been reaching out to with his recurring call to "sacrifice for a cause larger than their own self-interest." It's a call that has a large audience. Tax cuts are great, but people want to believe they are voting for more than a $300 check.
Back in the campaign's early days -- when McCain was still registering in the single digits along with Bauer, Hatch, Alexander, and Keyes -- Bush's sales pitch centered on his ability to draw into the party Democrats and Independents, blacks and Hispanics. Now, he's whining that non-Republicans are trying to "hijack" the GOP -- and yet, comically, he still insists on referring to himself in his stump speech as "the unifier." As long as there is an (R) following your name, as long as you are, in his words, "good Republicans," then Bush will unite you. Otherwise, get off the darn bus -- interparty fraternizing is not allowed.
Party purity is the rallying cry being shouted from the rooftops by Republican governors, senators, and assorted Bush loyalists. But what McCain can easily demonstrate is that this is the recipe for a very pure third consecutive GOP defeat at the polls in November. In fact, Bush is running Bob Dole's race -- the same generic Republican campaign that blooms in the spring but withers in the fall.
Last year, when a federal court of appeals upheld California's open primary law, which had been established by 60% of the vote in 1996, Chief Judge Betty Fletcher sounded as though she had the McCain Majority in mind: "It was apparent that California voters believe that the system is fairer when all voters participate in framing the choice of candidates in the general election. These interests outweighed the interest political parties had in controlling who votes in the primary."
Clearly, the political parties did not agree. Having lost both at the polls and in the courts, they got the state legislature to do their dirty work for them, and overruled the will of the people by making the primaries open in name only. Everyone can vote, but only party members' ballots count toward the delegate tally.
So the very establishment that McCain is fighting has made sure that only Republicans can give him the top prize of this primary season, California's 162 delegates -- over 15 percent of the 1,035 needed to win the GOP nomination. So even as he's riding the populist wave that's carried him this far, McCain will need to draw in not just those Republicans energized by his message of reform but also the ones who, while not exactly pining for the second coming of Teddy Roosevelt, consider a little reform a small price to pay for putting an end to the Clinton-Gore reign.
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