YORK, Pa. — Grand Funk Railroad’s “American Band” blared from
the speakers as Sen. John McCain shook hands with supporters
following his town hall meeting here yesterday.
The song’s lyrics — celebrating a rock band’s hedonistic
depredations with groupies like “Sweet Connie” — don’t quite match
the staid image of the GOP, but like the '70s rockers, the
presidential candidate was here to help Pennsylvania Republicans
“party down.”
“I think we’re going to be up late on election night, and I’m
the underdog,” McCain told a crowd of more than 3,000 at the Toyota
Arena, and made a prediction: “I think you’re going to hear the
commentators say, ‘Well, we’re waiting for Pennsylvania.’”
That the result on Nov. 4 could hinge on Pennsylvania’s 21
electoral votes is an optimistic forecast for a candidate who
continues to trail his Democratic rival in
recent national polls. No Republican presidential candidate has
carried Pennsylvania since 1988, and recent statewide polls
show Sen. Barack Obama leading by more than 7
points.
The McCain campaign projected confidence yesterday, however, as
the candidate — whose ads have mocked Obama as a “celebrity” — arrived with his own political rock-star
entourage.
Former Gov. Tom Ridge and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman stepped
off the “Straight Talk Express” bus, which rolled right into the
arena as the concert-quality sound system blasted out the
Rocky theme. Sen. Arlen Specter had warmed up the crowd
with an appearance that hadn’t been announced in pre-event
publicity.
“It may very well be that the election is decided in
Pennsylvania,” Specter said, and predicted that McCain’s “record of
independence” would prove “very appealing” in suburban
Philadelphia, a region that has tilted heavily toward Democrats in
recent years.
McCain’s “maverick” appeal to independents — the GOP
candidate’s best hope in a year when polls show the percentage of
voters expressing Republican affiliation has sagged — was also praised by Ridge.
“There are red states and blue states, but we need a president
who is red, white and blue,” the former governor said.
His support from Lieberman — who was chased out of the
Democratic Party by netroots-backed antiwar candidate Ned Lamont in
his 2006 Senate primary — is part of a package that puts a
patriotic spin on post-partisanship.
“The choice could not be more clear,” Lieberman told the
Pennsylvanians yesterday, describing a contest “between one
candidate, John McCain, who has always put the country first,
worked across party lines to get things done, and one candidate who
has not.”
WHILE LIEBERMAN’S line drew cheers from the audience in York, it
elicited howls of outrage from Obama’s supporters online, including
Andrew Sullivan, who said the ex-Democrat was
doing “what Rove Republican vice-presidential candidates have been
trained to do: savage the opponent as a traitor.”
Speculation about Lieberman as the Republican’s running mate is
probably farfetched, but the McCain campaign is clearly unafraid to
brandish their candidate’s military service as evidence of his
superior qualification for office. Lieberman also described the
election as a choice between one candidate who had “been tested in
war and tried in peace” and “another candidate who has not.”
Team Maverick also doesn’t hesitate to showcase their man’s long
experience in foreign affairs in the wake of Russia’s invasion of
Georgia — a former Soviet republic where McCain yesterday reminded
his audience that in 2006 he had “reviewed the Georgian troops who
had served with honor beside American soldiers in Iraq.”
“The impact of Russia’s action goes beyond the threat to a
democratic Georgia,” McCain said.
“Russia has used violence against Georgia to send a signal to
any country that chooses to associate with the West and aspires to
our shared economic and political values.”
McCain described a morning phone call to Georgian President
Mikhail Saakashvili (“whom I have known for many years”) and
conveyed Saakashvili’s “heartfelt thanks for the support of the
American people for this tiny little democracy far away…. And I
told him that I know I speak for every American when I say to him:
today we are all Georgians.”
AS OLD-FASHIONED and corny as that might sound to postmodern
sophisticates, the line drew applause in York, a town of 40,000
about 25 miles east of Gettysburg.
McCain got even more applause when he said the invasion of
Georgia — site of a key pipeline delivering Caspian Sea oil to
Europe — is “another reminder it’s time we got serious about our
energy crisis and stop sending $700 billion a year to countries
that don’t like us very much.”
The Republican transitioned seamlessly from foreign to domestic
concerns, touting his “all of the above” approach to energy policy,
reminding his listeners that “the United States of America sits on
the world’s largest resource of coal” — a sure applause line in
central Pennsylvania.
Perhaps a more surprising applause line with the Republican
audience was McCain’s praise for Sen. Hillary Clinton. Responding
to a question from a young former Clinton supporter, McCain was
cheered when he said the former first lady “ran a very good
campaign. She inspired young women and people all over America and
I think she deserves great credit for running a very fine
campaign.”
Pennsylvania was the scene of a solid Hillary victory in April and became part of the
Clinton campaign’s argument that Obama lacked the kind of support
Democrats must have from working-class voters to win in November.
Yet polls so far don’t indicate any defection of Clinton’s primary
voters to the Republicans, and the last poll to show McCain leading Obama in
Pennsylvania was in April.
Since former Bush operative (and Karl Rove protege) Steve
Schmidt took over as campaign manager last month, however, the
McCain operation has clearly become more aggressive and
disciplined. The candidate’s repeated visits to Pennsylvania
suggest an intention to fight hard to switch the blue state to
Republican red for the first time in two decades.
The Obama campaign is evidently unconcerned by these efforts.
While McCain shook hands in Pennsylvania, Obama enjoyed his fifth
day of a Hawaiian vacation.
Given all the disadvantages Republicans face this fall, there
may be little hope that McCain can match his miraculous comeback in
the primaries, when he went from being broke and counted out of the
race last summer to clinching the nomination in March.
Yet the maverick keeps plugging away, in keeping with the theme
that rocked the arena speakers as he climbed back aboard the
Straight Talk Express yesterday in York: “Taking Care of
Business.”
