Or so implies Michael Crowley:
I'm up in New Hampshire this weekend and just saw John McCain speak to a Chamber of Commerce luncheon here in Concord. Despite the meltdown of his near-bankrupt campaign, McCain showed no outward signs of despair–not even when one reporter impishly asked him whether we have a better chance of winning in Iraq than he does at winning the nomination. I braced for a flash of McCain's famous temper, but instead he just chuckled. "In the words of Chairman Mao, it's always darkest before it's black," McCain cracked. He said this while surrounded by a crush of perhaps 30 or 40 reporters–the sort of treatment usually accorded to a front-running candidate–not one near extinction. (One reporter told me he'd left a Hillary Clinton rally to come see McCain, conceding that it was "a little weird to leave the frontunner" to see someone written off for dead. Hence the confused observation I overheard little girl make to her mother: "Most of the people here are reporters!") But McCain's spectacular meltdown, of course, is a special case.
The charisma of the despairing may make for good soundbite reportage, but it still doesn't change the most obvious fact of the McCain implosion. That is, the one thing that might actually save his campaign by infusing it with much-needed cash is also the one thing his opponents would exploit to their ultimate advantage: George W. Bush. Despite having an approval rating in the high 20's, the president still, I would wager, has the coffer power that sent him to the White House in the first place. (The "base" only looks dead.) Should the request be made of him to help the most war-loyal candidate on the GOP ticket, it wouldn't be denied. Of course, looking to Bush for fundraising purposes would be the final act of desperation of the McCain candidacy, as well as its death warrant. McCain might as well select Joe Lieberman as his running mate.
The media, at present, is his strongest ally for reasons that date back to 2000 when he was the Republican frontrunner unmanned by the unsophisticated governor of Texas, who still managed to seduce journalists. They've never forgiven themselves for it. The question is how much longer penance, married to a wholly artificial "maverick" reputation, can last on $2 million…
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