FEBRUARY 14, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 6

Hughes argued that they needed to hijack McCain's message for themselves. "Governor Bush is a reformer," she said. "I don't think we've articulated that very well." The South Carolina team--which includes Lieutenant Governor Bob Peeler, former Governor David Beasley and top G.O.P. operative Warren Tompkins--was less concerned about redefining Bush as a reformer than about turning McCain into a liberal or, as one of them put it, "worse than a Democrat." "McCain's not an outsider," said one. "He's an insider. When I hear this populist stuff, it makes me wanna throw up."

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At some point the discussion turned to who could be counted on to fire which volleys. Several outside groups, including the National Right to Life Committee, Americans for Tax Reform and the tobacco lobby were mentioned. "Right to Life will do radio, ATR will do TV ads," said one of Bush's South Carolina advisers. "ATR will come down with whatever we need." No one in the meeting suggested that the campaign was or should be coordinating with these outside groups. Coordination is illegal, but it is also in the eye of the beholder, and the discussion revolved around the idea that these third-party ad campaigns would benefit Bush's effort.

"We have to drive his negatives up," said one of the participants. Said another: "On the flag, on taxes and on campaign finance, we don't know where the real McCain is. 'Who's the real McCain?' We have to prosecute that. We gotta hit him hard." They tested some new tag lines, designed to make clear that the G.O.P. was still a club worth belonging to. "He's not one of us" was one proposal, and "He doesn't share our conservative values" and "He's outside the mainstream." Someone even proposed "Out of touch" as a possibility, which makes one wonder which campaign it was that just lost a primary by 19 points and never saw it coming.

The next morning an anti-McCain ad by a group called the National Smokers Alliance was on the air, and by week's end Bush had launched an ad in South Carolina of the kind he had refused to air in New Hampshire. It is the first by either candidate to mention the other by name. "John McCain's ad about Governor Bush's tax plan isn't true, and McCain knows it," the voice-over says. "On taxes, McCain echoes Washington Democrats, when we need a conservative leader to challenge them: Governor Bush. Proven. Tested. And ready to lead America." On the trail, Bush was even sharper, blasting McCain's "Washington double-talk" for casting himself as a reformer while flying on corporate jets and planning a Washington fund raiser this week to schmooze with the lobbyists he vilifies on the trail.

Bush is in a nest of tough boxes now, and everyone could see how they fit inside one another. He is trying to run a newly ideological campaign against a guy who's nonideological; he's complaining about being usurped by a fake who is riding a public wave of reform; he has gone negative against a candidate who seems to fear nothing but who owes his success so far to a happy willingness to confess everything. Finally, Bush is relying on the party's right wing to save him from a candidate from the radical center. If there is one state where this might work, it is South Carolina, where a third of the voters describe themselves as religious conservatives--compared with about 1 in 7 in New Hampshire.

But South Carolina also has an open primary: Democrats and independents can vote too, and Bush's newly starched message may not work well on the Myrtle Beach transplants and Charleston sophisticates. Hours after McCain held his political rave of bright-eyed college converts, Bush was appearing at Bob Jones University--a school famous for banning interracial dating--where he told the students, whose attendance was required, that he was a conservative. He said it six times in less than a minute. When he needed a heavyweight to testify to his readiness to be President, he turned to Dan Quayle. And as he groped around for an issue to bludgeon McCain with, he seized on what might be the strangest possible choice--the charge that McCain, the war hero who never fails to pay homage to the Greatest Generation in his speeches, was somehow weak on veterans' issues.

Sitting in his hotel room at the Courtyard Marriott in Myrtle Beach, McCain loosened his tie and propped his feet up on the coffee table. "Attacking me on veterans?" he said in wonder. "Don't worry about that," said Weaver, the political director. "He's going to try to trick you into responding." McCain nodded. "We'll handle him,'" said Murphy, the strategist. "Let him be flapping around. Focus on being presidential." That's still a huge assignment for John McCain. He began his race well over a year ago, but his transformation into a front runner is just beginning. South Carolina has two weeks to decide how long that journey will last.

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