A year ago this summer, the McCain campaign was a bankrupt political joke; the political class only mentioned it to speculate when it would be mercifully euthanized.
What followed was one of the most improbable comebacks of American political history. The electoral stars aligned into a powerful, unpredicted syzygy: The surge in Iraq worked, the immigration issue faded, the conservative movement did not coalesce around a single opponent. McCain won by shedding his early, bloated campaign structure and emphasizing his own large personality.
Now, it is a fact that, last summer, most observers regardless of political persuasion pronounced McCain's candidacy DOA. The guy to beat was Mitt Romney. Mike Huckabee surged in Iowa, tarnishing the sheen on Romney's hair, er, I mean image as the nominee. Yet, there was a certain coalescing of forces that led, like that rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem, to McCain's nomination. While hardly of the historic proportions of the Democratic primary (two minority candidates as leaders, with an African-American winning the race), McCain certainly did seem to pull out of nowhere to beat back the galloping hordes.
Yet, rather than deal with the odd mixture of things that propelled McCain to the top of the GOP ticket, Gerson just seems entranced by McCain's manliness.
McCain's experience, unlike some war stories, grows more shockingly impressive upon examination. Physical courage and mental toughness may not be requirements for the presidency, but they are at least as relevant as service in the Illinois legislature. And McCain's election as president would, in its own way, be historic -- finally and fully honoring the lessons of heroism that came out of America's conflicted experience of Vietnam.
All these experiences, political and personal, have created a unique candidate -- a man more driven by instincts of honor than ideology, predisposed to believe in his own virtue, equally predisposed to confuse opposition with dishonor. At its worst, this approach has alienated many of his Senate colleagues, and it reportedly led McCain to the brink of leaving the Republican Party in 2001, more out of pique than principle. At its best, this approach has seemed like a populist, reform-minded conservatism, aimed at breaking up concentrated, selfish interests that threaten the public good -- from his campaign against big tobacco, to his anger at inflated corporate salaries, to his disgust with congressional earmarks and pork-barrel spending, to his support for increased automobile fuel efficiency standards and a cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions.
In the paragraph prior to the above two quoted, Gerson compares McCain's experience as a POW in Hanoi to an improbable images of George Washington in British hands and Einsenhower in a Gestapo cell. The problem with these analogies might be missed by Gerson but is dealt with easily enough. The latter two men - Washington and Einsenhower - became President precisely because they didn't become POWs. Indeed, had Washington become one it is highly likely there would have been no such office in the first place.
This is not to say that McCain's POW status is a hindrance. Rather, it is to point out that, for the most part, voters aren't really all that interested in it. It's a wonderful biographical touch - he survived that hell, showing his mettle - but is largely irrelevant to the concerns of most voters today.
Yet, Gerson just has this image of McCain in his cell, years stretching on after year, and flop-sweats himself to the finish line of his column.
Bill Galston of the Brookings Institution calls McCain's policy agenda "a promiscuous heap of interesting ideas that will not cohere in one administration" -- a judgment some Republicans share. Up to this point in the campaign, the charge has not been much of a problem -- in this environment, a reliable, robotic Republican of the Romney sort would be nowhere near Obama in the polls.
But the personality- and destiny-driven McCain campaign of the primaries is reaching its natural limits. Eventually, a presidential campaign needs a national organization. And eventually, McCain must define McCainism.
Except, to take the last line of Gerson seriously enough, he doesn't have to, because journalistic fellatio artists like Gerson have done it for us for years - all that straight-talk, maverick, former-POW crap is already out there. Who cares about policy positions, when all you need do is consider "the McCain miracle", and how far he has come from "the Hanoi Hilton". Gerson aids and abets this nonsense with a column like this. He wants to be critical, but he gets all goosepimply when he pictures the once-distraught McCain now on the verge of the White House. What a road he has traveled! Barack Obama's biography and history and achievements are as nothing compared to this!
One hopes Gerson wasn't wearing a blue dress when he typed this nonsense.
