Bull Moose loyalty

Senator McCain's decision to line up behind Our Fearless Leader despite the polls has hurt him pretty badly campaign-wise

Faced with disappointing second quarter fundraising returns — and with just $2 million cash on hand — the presidential campaign of John McCain limps on, but the one-time frontrunner faces enormous odds of winning the nomination that was once thought to be his for the taking.

In order to stay in the race, the McCain camp cut dozens of staff positions on Monday while many senior staffers took pay cuts. Perhaps the deepest sign of trouble is that McCain is giving serious consideration to accepting federal matching funds. Federal cash would keep the campaign functioning through the beginning of primary season, but it would also force McCain to abide by strict spending limits — limits that hobble none of the other major candidates. "When you're dying, you often need a transfusion," said University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato, "This is a transfusion of cash, not blood, but the campaign is dying."

In a conference call with reporters, campaign manager Terry Nelson and senior adviser John Weaver insisted that a combination of massive staff and salary cuts and a renewed focus on face-to-face "retail" politics could pave the way for an upset in early primary states. On the call, Nelson admitted that, "at one point, we believed we'd raise over $100 million in this calendar year," before dryly adding, "we now believe that assumption was incorrect."

To understand just how much has changed for McCain, one need only look back a little over a year ago, when national polls had McCain and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani neck-and-neck at the front of the GOP field. The McCain campaign planned its strategy accordingly, hiring former Bush staffers and focusing on winning a general election, not fighting out a competitive primary season.

Accepting the $6 million they have coming in matching funds, said one aide not on the call, would be a sign that McCain is not backing out anytime soon: "We're in the game; it will allow us to compete." Specifically, said the aide, the matching funds would allow McCain to pitch a media battle against the other Republican hopefuls. At the moment, Mitt Romney has aired an almost uncontested commercial blitz.

Fortunately for the Senator, he wasn't forced to fire this fellow

Marshall Wittmann, a former communications director for McCain and an adviser to McCain's 2000 presidential run who is now with the Democratic Leadership Council, said that if McCain does decide to run for the White House again, Wittmann won't hesitate to join his team.

"I'd walk over a field of broken glass for Senator McCain," Wittmann said. "One thing that transcends party loyalty is my admiration for John McCain."

He talks about the broken glass thing a lot. Here, explaining why he jumped from the RNC to the McCain bandwagon

In September 2002 -- a year when he was quoted 640 times, according to Nexis -- Wittmann quit quotemeistering to take a job as press secretary to McCain, a job that required that he no longer be quoted by name.

McCain is the only pol on Earth who could have unplugged the Wittmann quote machine. Wittmann is absolutely gaga over McCain. "My great belief is that John McCain is the living embodiment of Teddy Roosevelt," he says.

He also says this: "I would crawl over a field of broken glass for him."

McCain likes Wittmann, too, although he doesn't get quite so gooey about it: "I admire his talent and his skill and I enjoy his company very much."

Here (after his jump from the McCain bandwagon to the DLC, he explains what the Democrats can do to recreate the McCain electoral magic that's become such an important part of Mr. Wittman's own branding

A curious subplot in the 2004 presidential race was the "McCain Primary" -- the desperate competition among top contenders for the Democratic nomination to portray themselves as heirs to the political legacy of the charismatic Arizona Republican. One by one, they boasted of their personal friendships with McCain, touted their experiences working with him in Congress, or drew attention to other similarities between them. McCain himself joked that he was the victim of identity theft. But the competition was serious business. To a person, the leading Democratic candidates wanted to be seen as straight-talking, insurgent reformers willing to take on the Washington establishment and special interests in their own party.

The competition was rich with irony, of course: McCain lost his own bid for the presidency in 2000, yet here were most of the other party's hopefuls trying to emulate him. Compounding that irony was the fact that their logic was actually sound. In an age of heated political polarization, McCain has a special appeal that transcends partisanship. That's why he was able to win presidential primaries in states that allow independents to vote in the Republican race, such as New Hampshire. It's why, even though he lost the nomination, he emerged from the 2000 campaign with a broad national constituency. And it's why in his most recent Senate race in Arizona -- a once and future swing state -- he won the majority of Republican, independent, and Democratic voters.

In the end, no candidate managed to win the McCain Primary in 2004. But as Democrats plot their path back to power, they would be well-advised to keep studying the lessons of McCain's 2000 presidential campaign and his continuing role in American politics.

Particularly now that the nation is at war, there is a need for a politics that transcends narrow, self-interested partisanship. Many Americans believe they are not represented by either party. Both the Democrats and the Republicans sometimes seem more focused on appeasing their respective bases than serving the overall interests of the nation. While we are burdened by the costs of war and an ever-growing national debt, Congress indulges in parochial spending projects and tax cuts for the comfortable. There is a hunger for politicians who defy that pattern and stand up for big national causes instead.

Stipulating that it is impossible to clone McCain, whose biography and personal charisma are unique, how can other politicians, Democrats in particular, achieve the same popularity he has?

The Bull Moose is pondering that very question today from his staff job in Senator Lieberman's office while Senator McCain's campaign swirls the bowl.

Maybe someone forgot to spread the broken glass.

The next time Mr. Wittman's morally bankrupt breakneck pursuit of personal advancement quixotic political iconoclasm (he's a jewish christian coalition apparatchik with a liberal wife who works for Republicans and the DLC and Joe Lieberman and... oh, OK, he works for Republicans) sends him off in a well-paid new direction, could we please be spared the thumbsuckers about his mavericity and his spiritual connection to John McCain? Because I believe that ship has officially sailed without him.