Ann Coulter, the corrosive conservative commentator, has vowed that she will vote Democrat if John McCain wins the Republican nomination. Count one more vote for the Democrats.
If a host of recent polls are accurate, though heaven knows they've been wrong before, the Arizona senator will win today's Super Tuesday national primary, taking so many winner-take-all states that the race for the Republican presidential nomination will be all but over. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney's numbers in California are improving, according to some polls, and he may choose to remain in the race in hopes that a conservative groundswell in later primaries will reverse today's verdict. But the odds are long.
So how did he do it? How did a 71-year-old veteran senator, whose campaign imploded last summer, sending most of his paid advisers looking for other jobs, recover to become the presumed Republican nominee?
It may have something to do with his years as a prisoner in Vietnam.
Mr. McCain found himself in trouble last summer because he was "burning through too much money," in the words of Robert Erikson, a political scientist at Columbia University, while competing with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani for support among the moderate wing of the Republican Party.
Once he realized he was broke, Mr. McCain fired his staff and, to quote Republican strategist Ralph Reed, "went fetal," retreating to New Hampshire and working the state relentlessly. (He held more than 100 town hall meetings in the ensuing months.) He also took out a $3-million (U.S.) line of credit, using his mailing list as collateral.
"He hunkered down, he survived," believes Stanley Renshon, a political scientist and psychologist at City University of New York, where he studies the psychology of politicians.
"It reminds me very much of what he had to do as a prisoner of war."
Mr. McCain's position was strengthened by the weaknesses of the other candidates.
"The primary thing is that the rest of the field was so bad," observes Michael Tanner, an analyst with the conservative Cato Institute, in Washington.
"They were all deeply flawed, and that prevented any of them from rising as the alternative."
Mr. McCain's strategy of survival worked. His win in New Hampshire propelled him back into the front ranks of the race. Because Mr. McCain was already well known and didn't need to advertise to introduce himself to voters, he was able to compete on a much smaller budget than his principal rival, Mr. Romney.
Meanwhile, Mr. Giuliani's campaign was tanking, thanks to his hubris in staking everything on the Florida primary, giving Mr. McCain sole access to the moderate-Republican field, while the conservative vote bifurcated between Mr. Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, as it continues to do today.
"If it were only Romney and McCain on the ticket, I don't think we'd be calling McCain the heir apparent today," observes Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas in Austin.
Perfectly true, yet it is also true that in head-to-head matchups with Mr. Romney, Mr. McCain usually walks away the winner. For some intangible reason, Mr. Romney does not come across as likeable.
"To some voters, he comes across a bit like a snake-oil salesman," notes Prof. Erikson, an impression compounded by Mr. Romney's unseemly conversion from liberal to conservative on social policy.
At the Cato Institute, Mr. Tanner points out that Mr. Romney has not picked up endorsements from his fellow governors, whereas everyone from Charlie Crist in Florida to Arnold Schwarzenegger in California has swung behind Mr. McCain.
Even Mr. Romney's fellow candidates like Mr. McCain better, something that the Romney campaign attributes to the Arizona senator's insider status in Washington.
Prof. Renshon believes something else may also be at work. Voters are sensing the differences in the quality of ambition that drives the candidates.
