All The King's Horses...

On the day John McCain suspended his presidential campaign, the telephone number at his Arizona mountain retreat became the hottest 10 digits in politics. Callers ranged from Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, who refrained (for the moment) from begging McCain to launch an independent bid, to George W. Bush, who awkwardly thanked McCain for his gracious exit without daring to ask for the endorsement the Senator had so pointedly withheld. But the ones who dialed en masse were the would-be peacemakers--the Bush emissaries, McCain intermediaries and unallied freelance negotiators--trying to save the Republican Party by brokering a postprimary reconciliation. Party chairman Jim Nicholson phoned in. Bob Dole called but wound up advising his old friend to hold out for as much as possible. G.O.P. Senators like Connie Mack and Phil Gramm who had worked against McCain were suddenly sending a shout out. And best of all: Paul Coverdell, Bush's top backer in the Senate, relayed word that his colleagues--39 of whom had endorsed Bush--couldn't wait for McCain to return so they could hold an official ceremony in his honor.

It's going to take more than a "welcome back" fruit basket from his colleagues to persuade McCain to make nice. The usual threats and blandishments that bring defeated primary opponents in line with the presumed nominee aren't likely to work on a man who centered his campaign on bucking the very Establishment that is now so desperately fashioning him valentines. McCain may have lost, but it is Bush who must play the supplicant. The Texas Governor's advisers concede that he cannot win in November without substantial support from the independents and Democrats who flocked to McCain, and exit polls show that many of those voters were turned off by Bush during the primaries. Without McCain's direct appeal, they will probably vote for Al Gore, or not at all.

But many close McCain advisers think the personal rift between the two men is too wide to bridge, at least in the near term. After all, the last time Bush tried to smooth things over-at a South Carolina debate in early February-the result was less than promising. During a commercial break, Bush grasped McCain's hands and made a sugary plea for less acrimony in their campaign. When McCain pointed out that Bush's allies were savaging him in direct-mail and phone campaigns, Bush played the innocent. "Don't give me that shit," McCain growled, pulling away. "And take your hands off me."

Since then the bile has only thickened. In the final days of the South Carolina primary, Bush supporters unaffiliated with his campaign passed around leaflets highlighting Cindy McCain's addiction long ago to painkillers and the family's adoption of a Bangladeshi girl. And although McCain doesn't believe Bush directed those attacks, the Governor's silence about them was as wounding as if he had. In New York the Bush campaign aired a radio ad that selectively picked from McCain's record to attack him as an opponent of breast-cancer research, an affront made worse by the Texas Governor's seemingly callous response when he was told that McCain's sister had suffered from the disease. "John got pretty worked over by these boys," says Senator Chuck Hagel, a McCain supporter and intermediary between the two camps. "That poison and bitterness and anger needs some time to drain off."