McCain's Sinking Ship?

Michael Brus
Posted Monday, March 6, 2000, at 3:39 AM ET

Issue 1 is the Republican presidential race. Issue 2 is the Democratic race. Issue 3 is last week's shooting by a first grader.

Almost every pundit agrees that George W. Bush will win the Republican nomination. A victory by John McCain, says Tucker Carlson (CNN's Late Edition), would take "something approaching a miracle." Most think that McCain's denunciation of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell has sealed his fate. Although Juan Williams (Fox News Sunday) and Jim Warren (McLaughlin Group) agree with McCain's criticisms of the two Christian leaders, pundits such as David Broder (Washington Week in Review), Fred Barnes (FNS), Brit Hume (FNS), and Eleanor Clift (MG) note that the speech was interpreted as an attack on the entire Christian right and will likely increase Christian turnout for Bush without winning many Republican votes for McCain. Mark Shields (PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer) points out that by making the speech on the eve of the Virginia primary--which he knew he would probably lose--McCain virtually invited the pundits to pronounce it a failure. Mara Liasson (FNS) remarks that Bill Clinton's 1992 attack on rap singer Sister Souljah--to which the McCain speech has been compared--focused on a single lyric advocating the murder of white people, and thus did not alientate an entire block of voters, as McCain's speech seems to have done.

McCain's denunciation provokes different responses from Falwell and Robertson. Appearing on LE and ABC's This Week, Falwell praises McCain, forgives his attack, and says that he will support him if he beats Bush, whom Falwell favors. When the reverend's kind words are relayed to McCain on CBS's Face the Nation, the senator refuses Falwell's support. Robertson does not appear on today's programs, but two weeks ago--before McCain's attacks on him--he told LE that he would not support McCain if nominated and he denounced the senator's campaign-finance proposals. On CNN's Capital Gang, Gary Bauer objects to McCain's attack on his two evangelical friends but does not rescind his endorsement of McCain. Pat Buchanan tells FNS that McCain's speech was "bold" but "over-the-top."

Although he tries to appear optimistic on TW and NBC's Meet the Press, Bill Bradley is history as far as the pundits are concerned. LE's pollster, William Schneider, predicts a nationwide shutout for Al Gore on Tuesday. Later on the program, Bradley supporter Bob Kerrey sounds like a Gore supporter, calling Gore's campaign a fair one (Bradley had denounced it earlier on MTP) and predicting that Gore will be less vulnerable on campaign-finance issues in the fall because he has proved his mettle against Bradley. Many pundits are bullish on Gore's chances in November: Steve Roberts (LE) says that Gore has successfully morphed from a Clinton administration lackey into an independent fighter, Kate O'Beirne (CG) says that Bradley's challenge has positoned Gore in the political center, and George Stephanopoulos (TW) notes that Gore has neutralized Bradley's one left-flank issue, health-care reform. Dissenters include George F. Will (TW), who ascribes Gore's victory to a Democratic party machine controlled by unions and black activists, and Brit Hume, who says, "Gore didn't beat Bradley, McCain beat Bradley."

A few programs discuss last week's murder in a first-grade classroom. George F. Will (TW) blames the breakdown in family values, while Cokie Roberts (TW) blames easy access to handguns. George Stephanopoulos (TW) argues that the politics of gun-control has changed over the past six or seven years: Although the NRA is still strong, restrictions like background checks and trigger locks are on the brink of winning congressional majorities. David Sanger (WWIR) says that since half of American families already own guns, requiring trigger locks for new ones won't make much difference.

Mark Shields Recycled Soundbite Watch (No. 57)

They're not accusing him of being anti-Catholic, they're accusing him of moral cowardice, of going to Bob Jones University and remaining mute in that presence and not speaking truth to power. That's what it is, lacking the moral courage to say, I disagree.

--Mark Shields (CG)

That is not the charge. The charge is--the charge against him is that he lacked moral--he was a moral coward when he went there. That he lacked the courage to speak truth to power while there and to say, What you people do is wrong.

--Mark Shields (NH)

Last Word

The reason why both Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are so easy to pick on [is that], as far as the media is concerned, let's face it--[Robertson and Falwell] are "intolerant" and "divisive" because of their positions on abortion and gay rights. Yet John McCain insists he shares those positions. So [instead] he criticizes Pat Robertson because of his position on the Freemasons, which has not exactly been a preoccupation of Republicans.