McCain's Moment

(7 of 8)

For their part, the Republican Governors were generally holding fast for Bush. It helps that they have nowhere else to go; but they had been bracing for this anyway. For several weeks top Republicans, including Michigan's John Engler, had been quietly complaining that the Bush campaign has been too secretive, too insular, too resistant to taking outside advice. Bush himself had expressed impatience with the way the Iron Triangle of Hughes, Rove and campaign manager Joe Allbaugh had limited access of ideas and people but never took any step to open things up. "This is a colossal f___up," said a Bush adviser. Said another: "By any measure, the campaign failed." "It's gone from 1 in 10 to 2 in 10," said a longtime pioneer. "But if McCain wins South Carolina, anything can happen."

Which is why Bush's top aides and his South Carolina allies were huddled in the Greenville Grand Hyatt by Wednesday afternoon, trying to figure out how to cut McCain fast and deep. Forget what they'd said about winning respect as well as votes; the loss up North was so bad that no one thought Bush could win South Carolina on the strength of his positive message alone. As a participant put it later, this was the moment the Bush campaign "decided to take the gloves off."

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."

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.