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The Miracle Of McCain

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By MICHAEL GERSON Washington Post Writer's Group

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 16, 2008

WASHINGTON - In the genuine historical miracle of Barack Obama - it was only 43 years ago, half a historical eye-blink, when African-American voting rights remained unsecured - the political and personal miracle of John McCain has been largely overshadowed.

A year ago this summer, the McCain campaign was a bankrupt political joke; the political class only mentioned it to speculate when it would be mercifully euthanized.

What followed was one of the most improbable comebacks of American political history. The electoral stars aligned into a powerful, unpredicted syzygy: The surge in Iraq worked, the immigration issue faded, and the conservative movement did not coalesce around a single opponent. McCain won by shedding his early, bloated campaign structure and emphasizing his own large personality.

The style and approach of general election campaigns are often conditioned by the method of victory in the primaries. The Obama team ends the season like a battle-worn Army division - organized, relentless and skilled at fundraising, registering voters and getting them to the polls. Members of the McCain team feel more like survivors of a near-death experience - convinced that the virtues of their candidate and the blessings of the political gods matter more than the money, phone banks and door-knocking of traditional politics.

This worries some Republican strategists. One recently described the McCain campaign to me as the political equivalent of a Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland movie: Every morning a few guys get together and say, "Let's put on a show!" McCain's state campaign organizations, coalition outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts are weak or nonexistent. But McCain campaign officials are convinced that they will win - if they win - in a different manner than the methodical Bush campaigns of 2000 and 2004. McCain will either catch fire, or he won't - and traditional efforts to boost turnout, in this view, are not likely to make the difference. Given its history, the McCain campaign is understandably proud of its stripped down, seat-of-the-pants, insurgent campaign style. But it may eventually be useful to have a serious campaign organization in, say, Colorado.

The miracle of McCain's presidential run is even more extraordinary. It is obvious - and therefore often unstated - that the journey from a 4-by-6-foot North Vietnamese cell to the 36-by-29-foot Oval Office would be unprecedented.

But the personality- and destiny-driven McCain campaign of the primaries is reaching its natural limits. Eventually a presidential campaign needs a national organization. And eventually McCain must define McCainism.

Michael Gerson's column is distributed by Washington Post Writers Group.

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