http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18829055/site/newsweek/


May 23, 2007 - The nasty words are flying between the camps. By now, political junkies know how it escalated. Sen. John McCain made fun of former governor Mitt Romney’s suspect devotion to guns and of the news that Romney had used gardeners without green cards. Perhaps, said McCain, Romney’s answer on immigration would be “to get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his lawn.”

In other words, Romney was a pampered phony. It was funny, in a biting way, the McCain we reporters came to know and love: Popeye McCain busting Dudley Do-Right with a tattooed fist.

The Romneyans didn’t find it amusing. Said one at the top of the command structure (who should have had the guts to attach his name to his comments): “That’s what happens to a guy of McCain’s age when he doesn’t take his Metamucil. I don’t think he is the kind of angry fellow we want to let alone with the nuclear arsenal.”

To which John Weaver, a top McCain aide replied: “It was a joke and, by the way, Mitt Romney should be mocked! There isn’t a single issue in politics he hasn’t flip-flopped on. Maybe it works in the takeover world, but not in this one. And, by the way, if John is angry, so are the American people. They are fed up with politics as usual.”

To which the Romney guy replied: “I honor McCain’s service, but I think people are starting to feel a sorry for him. It is gold-watch time. That’s fatal in politics.”

So it goes.

McCain has lived this movie before, which is why he is angry, and I can’t blame him. His courage forever is being tested by his bad luck.

Last time he ran for president, eight years ago, misfortune materialized in the form of George W. Bush, who was everything that made McCain’s blood boil: a wealthy scion, aggressively well connected, running on his daddy’s name and contacts. This time, McCain’s chief tormentor is another Son of—a Romney with two generations of political ties and scores more millions in the bank than a Bush could imagine.

McCain rarely mentions that he, too, is a Son Of: third-generation Annapolis grad and namesake of admirals. But he is entitled to feel like an outsider. Six years in a POW camp during Vietnam gives you that right. His rise has been pretty much self-propelled.

At 70, he feels that this should be his time. He has valid reasons for thinking so. He waited his turn in the traditional Republican fashion. We are in the midst of a slow-motion war, and McCain is a warrior. He knows the world, its dangers and wonders; he knows the military, its powers and its limitations. He knows Washington. He has a big campaign organization, and substantive knowledge of most every issue.

He deserves credit for courage, too. Yes, he has pandered to the Bush crowd and religious conservatives (though he seems uncomfortable doing it, or overcompensates by being too enthusiastic, and all in all looks like he is following a dance-step chart).

Having come this far with Bush, it would be difficult for him to withdraw from the role that Tony Blair has now abandoned—that of cheerleader in chief for the president’s policy in Iraq.

Still, there is courage. His support for the Bush war policy exceeds what is politically necessary; even in the world of the GOP primaries, it is risky at this point. This is a course he genuinely believes in, and will pursue even if it costs him, which it well might. It’s the same story with immigration reform. He has devoted years to it. The compromise he has worked on for years, and helped to fashion recently, is unpopular on all sides. Maybe he has no choice but to stick with it. But he is.

Now to the luck. The war, of course, has been disastrously run, which isn’t his fault. Romney, who is moving up in Iowa and New Hampshire—indeed, he is functionally the front runner in the “early” states—can dip into his vast fortune if circumstances require. McCain’s most prominent evangelical supporter, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, died last week. McCain fell behind in early fund-raising, and now has to catch up—and miss vote after vote in the Senate. A friend and ally, Fred Dalton Thompson, is waiting in the wings for McCain to falter, and may well soon join the race.

So it came as no surprise that when, in a meeting on immigration recently, Sen. John Cornyn—part of the Bush Texas machine—got McCain going by accusing him of “parachuting” into the talks at the last minute, since he was spending most of his time fund-raising.

“Fuck you,” McCain is reported to have said.

Everybody is entitled to write his own campaign slogan.

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"The favorite American pastime is not baseball, it's moral crusades."