The McCain Surge

Concord, N.H.

Tempers flared as a horde of journalists jostled its way through the headquarters of Granite State Manufacturing last week. "Where are you from?" demanded a cameraman with a shaved head toting an unwieldy television camera on his shoulder. His question was directed at a tanned TV news reporter with Lego hair who kept thrusting his Fox 10 microphone in front of the candidate. "You should tell your cameraman that he's not the only one here! He keeps walking right into my shot!"

It was crowded. There were also two boom microphones, seven television cameras, ten still photographers, and at least a dozen print reporters.

This was not what I expected when I decided to join John McCain for the launch of his fall campaign. For much of the summer, the only stories about McCain's campaign told of its demise and the imminent end of his political career. The conventional wisdom in Washington: He's finished.

McCain has certainly had a difficult few months. His fundraising has been weak, his spending excessive, his campaign staff gutted. He favored Bush-style immigration reform; GOP primary voters do not. And he is the most outspoken proponent of the unpopular Iraq war among the candidates.

One commentator after another has informed us that McCain's support for the war dooms his campaign. Even with positive reports out of Iraq from the unlikeliest sources--Carl Levin? Hillary Clinton?--the prevailing sense is that McCain is playing an unwinnable hand.

McCain thinks they're all wrong, and he's betting his candidacy on it. In appearances across southern New Hampshire last week, he spoke mostly about the war and the need to win it. This week, he will travel through several states with pro-war veterans in what his campaign is calling the "No Surrender Tour."

If this were poker, he'd be all in.

Our first stop in New Hampshire became newsworthy for reasons having nothing to do with Iraq. Two students from Concord High School asked the kind of look-at-me questions that have more to do with impressing their peers than with grilling the candidate. (Reporters never do this.) One wanted to know whether McCain was worried that he was too old to be president and whether he thinks he might get Alzheimer's in office. Snickers everywhere. McCain joked that his son thinks he's old enough to hide his own Easter eggs, then punctuated his comments, with impeccable comic timing: "Thanks for the question, you little jerk!" The students loved it.

A second questioner sought McCain's views on LGBT issues. McCain was confused by the acronym--short for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender--and after a clarification, the senator acknowledged differences of opinion with his interrogator. The student responded angrily. "I came here to see a leader," he said. "I don't." McCain was unfazed. He told the student that such disagreements are "what America is all about," smiled, and moved on.

Later that evening, I rode with McCain to the fire department in Bow, for a town hall meeting. A nondescript white van with two "McCain" stickers affixed to the back windows served as a poor man's Straight Talk Express. The senator's wife, his daughter Meghan, and a longtime family friend were waiting in the van with two staffers when McCain climbed in. After welcoming me to the van, he smiled broadly and gestured to those sharing the ride.

"I'm sorry you have to sit here surrounded by all of these jerks," he said to great laughter.

I reminded him of the exchange at the school and said: "That's the word of the day, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah," he said, as the memory of the morning registered. "Then there was that other question about the TB-GYN community," McCain added, drawing laughter from the others in the van, most of whom knew the right acronym.

John McCain is having fun on the campaign trail--more fun than he did last spring when he was one of the frontrunners, and certainly more fun than during the summer of trouble. He is more carefree, more feisty, and more effective. Voters in New Hampshire seemed to notice.

When McCain dropped in unexpectedly at the Capitol Convenience store on Main Street in Concord, owner Mary Hill, a supporter, told him she could tell the difference. "Our friends were saying--old John McCain, he's going down in the polls," she said. "And I knew that's when you were going to start to fight."