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McCain's First Test
From the Web,
February 21, 2008
The New York Times dropped its
long-rumored bombshell story alleging that a past relationship with a female
lobbyist so worried advisers of his 2000 presidential campaign that they
engineered an intervention of sorts to put an end to it.
The implications could not be more clearly stated in the second paragraph of the
story: "Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top
advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself –- instructing staff
members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly
confronting him."
The story also suggests McCain may have done favors for the lobbyist, Vicki
Iseman: "A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and
1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing
agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same
city, a crucial issue for … one of Ms. Iseman's clients."
The story includes denials from both McCain and Iseman about the suggested
romantic relationship and the campaign released a statement calling the story a
"hit and run smear campaign."
Politically speaking, the story is threatening to McCain on two fronts.
First, with the nomination not yet completely in the grasp, it threatens to
spark more concerns among a party he is trying to unite for the fall campaign.
The reaction of those conservative agitators who have opposed McCain in the
primary campaign will be telling to how harmful even the vague allegations
raised by this story to his attempts at consolidating the GOP. There could
be a "told-you-so" reaction but the fact this story is being leveled by a news
organization that has been a longtime whipping post for conservatives may help
McCain.
Possibly more harmful in the long run is any denting of McCain's image as a
crusader against special interests and the Washington establishment. The
inference that a personal relationship (romantic or not) could have influenced
him to do anything that even appear to have bent the rules could damage his
appeal and blunt his attempts to broaden the base of his votes among independent
voters.
McCain is scheduled to appear at a press availability this morning at 9:00am ET.
This will be his first test as the presumptive nominee to demonstrate how he
will perform under this kind of pressure. The "straight talk" he has long
championed will be parsed a hundred different ways and compared to the story and
the public record. How he handles the allegations raised could set the
pattern for his general election campaign.
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