The New McCain

It’s pretty easy to understand what the political media liked about John McCain. He was available in a way that most politicians are not. While McCain’s “maverick,” go-against-the-party status is largely imaginary, the fact that he was willing to talk with reporters – not just repeat talking points – was not. For people who spend their careers covering politicians determined to stick to a script, to not let anything off the cuff or against message slip out, I’m sure this was an amazingly refreshing change of pace.

There’s something else that must have made McCain popular with reporters: he was a loser. It is much easier to champion an underdog than a winner. McCain ran in 2000 with a real outside chance. The fact that he didn’t win isn’t surprising, nor the fact that Bush ran such a sleazy campaign in South Carolina. What is surprising is the fact that McCain got as far as he did in the first place. Here is a man who married an heiress, ran for Congress in a state he’d never lived in before, doesn’t seem to have any coherent political philosophy and is given to making decisions nearly at whim. The fact that he was willing to sit down and have off the cuff discussions with the media covering him was what his campaign was based on. That kind of pose is novel in the political world for good reason: it’s incredibly dangerous for a politician in the US to do that. Innocuous statements have a tendency to become blown entirely out of proportion to their intent and relative meaning.

But the fact remains: McCain is good at it. By all accounts, he’s a very personable and funny guy, quick on his feet when discussing things (as long as it’s not the location of Spain) and willing to give reporters a good sound bite. Anyone who’s seen him on one of his numerous appearances on The Daily Show can attest to that.

Which makes it even more curious that he has decided to forgo that skill – more than anything the skill that has brought him to where he is – in favor of dogged repetition of carefully scripted stump speeches.

Mr. McCain’s once easygoing if irreverent campaign presence — endearing to crowds, though often the kind of undisciplined excursions that landed him in the gaffe doghouse — has been put out to pasture. He takes far fewer chances, meaning there are fewer risqué jokes, zingers at a familiar face in the crowd, provocative observations on policy or politics, or exercises in self-derogatory humor. By every appearance, this Mr. McCain is, or at least is struggling to be, disciplined and on message in a way befitting of American politics today, if not quite befitting of the McCain of yesterday.

There may be a price for all this. After his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, riveted the overflow crowd for 16 minutes on Tuesday at an airplane hangar here, it was Mr. McCain’s turn, and people in his audience began murmuring and drifting away midway through a 14-minute speech that was flat and cheerless. When Mr. McCain made his first appearance without Ms. Palin, on Monday morning in Jacksonville, Fla., he faced an arena that was one-quarter full.

This whole thing makes the Palin boomlet even more understandable. Palin is a charismatic public speaker. She’s able to deliver a speech from a teleprompter without looking like she’s getting ready for a root canal. McCain, as any one of his big set speeches can attest, isn’t able to do that. He’s halting and wavering, weak sounding. His sudden rediscovery of populism in the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse throws his new, stilted, Republican base-approved style in sharp contrast.

If this is the McCain we’re going to see for the rest of the campaign, it makes sense that McCain is still harping on Obama declining the joint town hall format. It plays McCain’s strengths. Set speeches and message discipline obviously don’t.