Content provided in partnership with
McCain is from Mars, Bush is from Venus
Spectator, The, Feb 19, 2000 by Steyn, Mark
As the campaign hots up, Mark Steyn reflects on the mystery of a world in which insiders suddenly become outsiders
EVERY morning, round about ten, the phone rings. 'Hi, I'm calling from ABC/NBC/PBS/WZZZ-AM Presque Isle, Maine. We saw Mark's piece attacking John McCain and we'd like him to take part in a discussion on McCain's popularity with the media.'
'He's all McCained out,' says my assistant. 'Can't you get someone else?'
'We would if we could,' says the producer. 'You don't happen to know any other columnists who are anti-McCain, do youT
- Most Popular Articles in News
- The Ten Best Laptop bags
- Tata plans cheapest-ever car for Indian market
- GLOBALIZATION AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT OF THE THIRD WORLD
- Corn is good for you; Corn is not only a tasty treat, but also a cereal that ...
- THE 50 BEST STYLISH HANDBAGS TO CARRY
- More »
Alas, it's a lonely life out here in the anti-McCain Rolodex. I've attacked everybody's favourite 'maverick' in The Spectator, the Telegraph, Canada's National Post, America's National Review, the American Spectator, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Dead Man's Gulch Weekend Shopper & Baptist Mission Newsletter.... I've written more anti-McCain pieces than any other guy on the planet. That loser Bush owes me big time. If he ever makes it to the White House, I'm expecting, at the very least, the ambassadorship to Chad. But I fear it's a waste of time speculating about the baubles of the Bush administration. Last week, in the Delaware primary, Dubya got 50 per cent of the vote, which is pretty impressive in a four-man race. But no one cared. The big story was McCain coming second with 25 per cent, even though he'd declined to campaign in the state and had gone out of his way to insult them, insisting that he not only wouldn't be making appearances in Delaware but that he didn't even bother looking out of the window at the insignificant backwater as the Metroliner zipped through it en route from New York to Washington. No wonder the media love him: at last they've got a candidate who's as dismissive of the electorate as they are.
According to Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard, McCain is the new Ronald Reagan. According to the New York Times, he's the new Robert F. Kennedy. According to TV Guide, he's the new Rachel from Friends. According to Gay Bath-house Monthly, he's the new Robert Mugabe, but hey, that's no reason not to support him because, say what you like, he may be a ferocious homophobe but at least you know where you stand with a straighttalking straight like that. McCain is the new Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the new Teddy Roosevelt, and, if you haven't written your Why-McCain-Is-The-New-[insert name of president here] column yet, you'd better hurry 'cause all the good ones are gone and you'll be down to 'Why McCain is the New Chester Arthur'. Stung by accusations that they're hanging off the senator's zipper like Monica Lewinsky, the press has been doing its best to report McCain's 'dark side'. It emerged last week that a couple of months back he told budget committee chairman and fellow Republican senator Pete Domenici that 'only an asshole would put together a budget like this'. Senator Domenici rose to his feet and said, with wounded dignity, that in all his years in the Senate no one had ever called him that. 'I wouldn't call you an asshole unless you really were an asshole,' said McCain.
Of course, for many in the press, that's just another reason to love him: a Republican who thinks other Republicans are assholes is the kind of Republican the entire country can unite behind. On Saturday, in South Carolina, it's only the GOP that's holding a primary, but, under the state's rules, independents and registered Democrats are allowed to vote in it which is a bit like letting Labour activists participate in a Tory leadership contest. Indeed, the husband of the woman who heads the Al Gore campaign in South Carolina has announced that he'll be participating in the Republican primary in order to vote for McCain. The state's Republicans prefer Bush, but who cares? Whether he wins or not depends on how many nonRepublicans turn up on the day.
The trick in this campaign is to be the designated 'outsider'. Not a real outsider like Alan Keyes, the African-American radio fulminator, or Steve Forbes, the billionaire geek who blew $60 million of his own money for the privilege of coming third in Delaware, but an insider whom the other insiders in the media decide to tout as the outsider. This year, the insiders' outsider is McCain, while Dubya is dismissed as the candidate of the 'Republican establishment'. Of the 55 Republican senators, 39 have endorsed Bush and only four McCain. But friends don't come much more fairweather than senior Republicans, and, if Bush loses again in South Carolina, many of them will be jumping ship. On Monday, for example, California's secretary of state - the highest-ranking Republican in the whole crazy place announced he was switching from Bush to McCain. It would not be inconceivable to find Senator Domenici, a month or two down the line, heading up the 'Assholes for McCain' committee.
For the most part, Dubya is taking it all lying down - and in his own bunk, too. The other day, a microphone caught the governor telling someone he was going back to Texas to sleep in his own bed and see his girls. It's reminiscent of 1996, when Bob Dole's aides were divided over whether he should do more meet-thepeople town meetings or more TV-oriented photo-ops. Bob split the difference and flew back to Bal Harbor, Florida, to work on his tan. By the day of the election, he was the most orange candidate in the history of the Republic. You can't blame Dubya for being a little aggrieved at being recast as this year's Bob Dole, when he's done everything the media has been telling the GOP to do for years. On the morning after the 1998 congressional elections, ABC's Cokie Roberts, as good a barometer of the received wisdom as any, sternly lectured conservative commentator Bill Kristol on how Republicans had to stop pandering to 'angry white men'. 'There aren't enough of you,' she pointed out. The Republicans who'd done well were fellows like young George W., who'd campaigned in Spanish and reached out to African-Americans and spoken in more touchy-feely language, which supposedly appeals to 'soccer moms' and thereby reduces the party's 'gender gap'.
