McCain's Bumpy Ride

On an unseasonably warm winter day in 1974, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., California governor Ronald Reagan delivered a speech that is often cited today as a founding document of Reagan-style optimism.

He quoted John Winthrop, first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who in 1630 declared: "We will be a city upon a hill." Reagan described the uniqueness of the American character and challenged those who suggested the United States was in decline. He concluded his remarks this way:

We cannot escape our destiny, nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall in Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the dark ages, Pope Pius XII said, "The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind."

We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.

John McCain remembers those words and the ones Reagan spoke moments earlier to open his speech.

There are three men here tonight I am very proud to introduce. It was a year ago this coming February when this country had its spirits lifted as they have never been lifted in many years. This happened when planes began landing on American soil and in the Philippines, bringing back men who had lived with honor for many miserable years in North Vietnam prisons. Three of those men are here tonight, John McCain, Bill Lawrence and Ed Martin. It is an honor to be here tonight. I am proud that you asked me, and I feel more than a little humble in the presence of this distinguished company.

John McCain is not Ronald Reagan. In fact, where Reagan ultimately created a governing conservative coalition, McCain's success in the early GOP primaries has threatened to tear it apart. But absent a dramatic turn of events, McCain will be like Reagan in one very important respect: He will be the presidential nominee of the Republican party.

When John McCain first ran for president, back in 2000, he won the New Hampshire primary by 18 points, briefly forestalling George W. Bush's seemingly inevitable victory. Bush had more money. He had the big name and the big-name advisers. Other elected officials boasted about their invitations to the governor's mansion in Austin and tripped over themselves to endorse Bush. McCain's win--and the size of it--shocked the political world. And no one was more surprised than McCain himself.

For months, McCain had run a carefree campaign. There were no expectations, so there was no pressure. Then he won New Hampshire, and he was, as Tucker Carlson wrote in these pages, "the dog who caught the car."

Carlson described McCain, just moments after his New Hampshire victory, looking sullen and anxious as he waited for an interview with CNN's Larry King.

He has his eyes locked, unblinking, on the blank camera in front of him. His teeth are set, his chin thrust forward in go-ahead-I-dare-you position. Between interviews, he maintains the pose. McCain looks on edge and unhappy, not at all like a man who has just achieved the greatest political triumph of his life. There is no relief on his face.

On his campaign bus two days before last week's Florida primary, I reminded McCain of those dark moments of his last campaign, the days right after he won, and asked him if he just prefers to be the underdog. He started with a hearty laugh, took a bite of a Nature Valley Oats 'N Honey granola bar, and grew quiet.

"I feel good about our campaign," he said before pausing for almost ten seconds.