McCain's Moment

(5 of 8)

He left the impression that maybe this was the hardest thing he had ever done--and he still was taking weekends off. Even as McCain bounced along the back roads clearly having a blast, breaking rules, insulting voters and reporters and staff members with glee, Bush was doing half the work with twice the effort. Maybe this wasn't exactly what he signed on for, when all those delegations were flying down to Austin and begging him to be the savior of the party. Now he had to do the begging, explain why someone who brags that he never wanted to be President actually deserves to be.

To win over the coddled voters of New Hampshire, it was not enough to ride into town whistling Hail to the Chief, followed by an entourage that included nearly as many clean-cut men and women talking into their sleeves as you'd expect to see when the real President came to town. There were rope lines and security sweeps and hard-bodied guys with sunglasses and bulges from the holsters under their suit coats who kept the crowds at bay and glared at anyone who looked like a trouble-maker. Bush would shake hands and sign autographs endlessly after one of his speeches, but he wouldn't engage in any kind of serious talk. "How ya' doin?" and "Thanks for your support!" and "I appreciate it!" sufficed for most encounters.

Bush even suffered from the beauty of his speeches; even when they didn't say much, they said it well--so well that the words seemed not his own. Especially when his genetic estrangement from the language poked through the script. Bush liked to joke that anyone in the audience who planned on voting for one of what he called his "erstwhile opponents" should refrain from voting more than once. It took weeks before Bush figured out that he didn't mean to say "erstwhile" but "worthwhile." Then there were the "tacular weapons" and the worry that single moms have about "putting food on their family."

To the extent that either of the two contenders had a message, McCain's was working better. Bush took it as gospel that He Who Promises the Bigger Tax Cut Wins. His $483 billion plan was supposed to trump the cautious McCain, who talked more about paying down the debt than paying off the voters. But he hadn't bargained on pinch-fisted Yankees like the man at the Nashua Chamber of Commerce breakfast who stood up and punctured the theory. "I'm tired of all this tax-cut nonsense," the questioner told the Governor. "Can we stop it, please?" To which Bush replied, "I don't believe it's nonsense. I'm not gonna drop my plan. If the heat gets on, I'm gonna keep to it. If you like it, I'm gonna take it to Congress. If you don't like it, you can send me home to Texas."

Bush likes to say that kind of thing. "I don't really care what the polls say; I'm not a poll-driven politician," he said later the same day. "If people don't agree, that's all right. We'll go fishin' in Texas." But what once sounded charmingly normal--I can take this or leave this--was starting to sound arrogant. When he appeared Saturday afternoon in Milford with brothers and sister and parents in tow, at an event in, of all perfect places, an indoor tennis club, wearing a Texas Rangers jacket with an imperial gold star on the chest like the kind Presidents wear on Air Force One, it had all the trappings of a coronation.