Bush needs a better McCain Connection if he expects to beat Al Gore. With sweeping primary victories, Bush and Gore locked up their parties’ nominations last week. After flirting with self-proclaimed outsiders–McCain and Bill Bradley–voters settled for quintessential insiders: prep-schooled princes who are well-connected, well-funded and born to the family business of politics. But to succeed, these scions must win over the voters who were, however briefly, drawn to McCain’s fiery reformist denunciations of The Washington Game.
It won’t be easy for either finalist. Gore’s team will recycle McCain’s attacks on Bush, but they’ll have to delete the nasty things McCain said about Gore, whose murky fund-raising history was in the news again last week. Proud and prickly in triumph, Bush’s aides weren’t about to cede the moral high ground. “We have a reform message, too, and a broader one,” said campaign manager Karl Rove. Still, Bush can’t afford an open rift. “If they don’t get the joke–and adopt our message–we’ll lose the election,” warned McCain campaign manager Rick Davis.
Negotiations could wind up on the floor of the Republican convention in Philadelphia this summer. To sell McCain’s agenda, NEWSWEEK learned, his allies will fight to keep control of the seven state delegations he won in the primaries. The number is critical: it takes six delegations to force a platform fight. Bush backers in Connecticut and Massachusetts may challenge McCain’s control, NEWSWEEK has learned. If Bush doesn’t call them off, a Bush-McCain truce could be dicey. “We’re going to take things one step at a time,” said Weaver.
As the race starts, Bush is ahead–barely. McCain’s supporters are the balance of power, along with Hispanics and women. In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, Bush leads Gore 47 percent to 44 percent, but McCain voters back Gore 48 percent to 41 percent. McCain himself continues to fascinate the voters. A hypothetical three-way race gives Bush 35 percent, McCain 32 percent and Gore 28 percent. It’s the closest a third-force figure has come to leading the polls since Ross Perot in the summer of 1992. Bush’s vaunted Hispanic appeal didn’t materialize in California, where he ran far behind Gore among Hispanics in the state’s “beauty pageant” vote. But for a Republican, he’s doing well with women: he’s closed the gender gap, tying Gore at 45 percent.
The preliminaries over, the Bush and Gore camps have turned their attention to the most arcane but crucial arithmetic in politics: how to get 270 electoral votes. With Republicans entrenched in the South, and Democrats dominant on the coasts, the key is the corridor that stretches from New Jersey to the shores of Lake Michigan. This time, though, each side vows to attack the other’s strongholds. Bush will contest California (which his father abandoned to Bill Clinton in 1992); Gore will try to win Florida, which Clinton won in 1996, even though Bush’s brother Jeb presides as governor. Geography is important, but demography is destiny. Here’s how the campaigns plan to woo three key groups:
Women. Bush’s campaign was formulated to appeal to women, who’ve been a problem for the GOP since 1980, when Ronald Reagan won by 19 points among men–but only two points among women. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” and focus on education have proved to be appealing in Texas. “George Bush talks in the language of the heart,” says GOP Rep. Jennifer Dunn of Washington, a top supporter. He frames his tax-cut idea in female terms, too, stressing its value to working “single moms”–a category the GOP had never targeted. Team Gore will rely on traditional Democratic appeals: the stout defense of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid–as well as abortion rights. “If he wants to meet us on this ground, fine,” said Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile. “We’re ready.”
Hispanics. Bush got about 37 percent of the Hispanic vote in his re-election race in Texas in 1998. Now the Austin Powers cite Hispanics as a major target of opportunity. They are generally conservative (voting overwhelmingly last week for a California ballot proposition that bars gay marriage), and their location is crucial: one third in California, with major enclaves in Illinois, New Jersey and Florida. Bush, who speaks functional Spanish, has held a town-hall meeting on Univision, and run TV spots in Spanish. His brother Jeb is married to a Mexican and speaks fluent Spanish.
So does Jeb’s eldest son, George P. Bush, who concedes that Hispanics “are very hesitant about the Republican Party,” as he told NEWSWEEK. Gore will do what he can to make them more so. On a foray behind enemy lines in Texas last weekend, Gore was planning to attack Bush on health care, pointing out that nearly half the Hispanics in the state have no coverage. Gore will also criticize Jeb’s opposition to affirmative action in Florida–and hope to draw his big brother into the fray.
McCain Voters. In the primaries Bush complained that most of McCain’s supporters weren’t Republicans. That’s true, but Bush needs all the help he can get. The NEWSWEEK Poll shows that more than a third (37 percent) are independents, 23 percent are Democrats and 29 percent are Republicans. Bush can forget about getting those Democrats, and it won’t be easy to win over the rest. McCain will have to help, actively, but there’s a wide gulf between Bush’s views and those of McCain supporters. A big tax cut is the centerpiece of Bush’s own “reform” message, but McCain voters prefer budget balancing to tax cutting by a 2-1 margin. They also agree with Gore’s positions–not with Bush’s–on gun control and abortion. They do agree with Bush on one major “reform”: the use of vouchers to give more children access to private schooling.
But all that is beside the point, at least to the cadres of McCainanites. They want to end what they see as the root of all evil in Washington: allowing individual fat-cat donors to funnel millions of dollars in “soft” money to political parties and independent groups. Gore has called for a ban on all such contributions–even as his party allies launched a drive to collect $35 million in such funds. Bush defends the practice as free speech (and argues that to give it up would amount to unilateral disarmament against union-funded Democrats). To win over McCain, Bush will have to change his own mind–and those of the Republican Bourbons of Congress, who believe fervently in the value of soft money. In any case, the issue won’t go away. When McCain returns from Bora-Bora, he’ll head straight for the Senate–and start preaching his sermon all over again.
