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Staff Forces McCain To Focus

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The Associated Press

Published: August 15, 2008

ASPEN, Colo. - For months, John McCain's presidential campaign was a near-constant swirl of free-ranging chats with voters, garrulous sessions with reporters and quips from the candidate that often had little to do with the day's planned message.

No more.

With a dozen weeks to go, McCain's campaign has notably limited his exposure to national reporters and even voters, devoting more time to private fundraisers, interviews with local journalists and events designed for TV cameras.

This week, for example, McCain conducted only one large "town hall" event and one full news conference, but at least seven fundraisers and a string of interviews with reporters mostly from local newspapers, radio and TV stations.

From here on, "you'll see a campaign that is better at staying on message," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a close associate who probably travels with McCain more than anyone outside his staff and family.

McCain will still hold town hall forums and take questions from national journalists, Graham said aboard the campaign plane Thursday. However, he said, "our problem is to keep these interactions to a manageable point."

McCain's advisers have long struggled for ways to keep him more disciplined and focused without entirely sacrificing his rambling talks with reporters on his bus and voters in gyms and meeting halls. McCain thrives on such activities, and they often show an appealing, impish side.

However, they also subject him to questions of all sorts, making it impossible to focus on a chosen message. Worse, they sometimes prompt McCain to ponder the questions with a long, puzzled expression - as he did last month when a Los Angeles Times reporter asked about insurance coverage for Viagra and birth control - that opponents love to distribute on the Internet.

In response, the campaign recently stopped opening the "Straight Talk Express" bus to the roughly two dozen journalists who travel with him regularly.

McCain still calls on them in news conferences, as he did on Wednesday, but those, too, have become less frequent.

"It's not like it used to be," Graham acknowledged. "But what we're learning is that once you become the nominee, every word is seized upon," and the campaign spends valuable time trying to extinguish brush fires.

Now, Graham said, "his day is more structured, focused on getting the message out."

Advisers also appear to be slowing McCain down a bit and giving him some rest, especially this week, when many Americans are distracted by the Olympic Games and summer vacations.

Democratic opponent Barack Obama is vacationing in Hawaii, further reducing the pressure on McCain to fight for attention.

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