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McCain muddles through disastrous week
Striking contrasts seen in engagements of Republican and Democratic candidates.
- By Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times Service
- Published: 23:41 July 25, 2008
- Republican presidential candidate Sen John McCain speaks during a town hall meeting at the Live Strong Summit on Thursday in Columbus, Ohio.
- Image Credit: AP
Columbus, Ohio Senator John McCain's presidential campaign recovered from a near-death experience almost exactly a year ago, and political candidates stumble in and out of troughs all the time. But it is safe to say that McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, is not having a spectacular week.
As his Democratic rival, Sen Barack Obama, met one-on-one with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in the Middle East on Wednesday, McCain went on an awkward grocery-shopping trip with a mother and two children in a Pennsylvania supermarket and held a news conference at the dairy case.
And as Obama spoke to a rousing crowd of more than 200,000 in Berlin on Thursday, McCain had a bratwurst lunch with the owner of a car dealership and other local business people at a German restaurant in Columbus.
"Well, I'd love to give a speech in Germany, a political speech, or a speech that maybe the German people would be interested in, but I'd much prefer to do it as president of the United States rather than as a candidate for the office of presidency," McCain told reporters outside Schmidt's Restaurant und Sausage Haus, shortly before Obama began speaking at the Victory Column in the heart of Berlin. (The campaign's choice of restaurant was consistent with the Republican National Committee's decision to run anti-Obama advertisements in Berlin, New Hampshire; Berlin, Wisconsin; and Berlin, Pennsylvania.)
Instead, McCain said, he would be "campaigning across the heartland of America and talking about the issues that are challenging America today".
That, at least, has been the plan this week, including an appearance with Lance Armstrong, the cyclist and cancer survivor, on Thursday night.
But at every stop that was supposed to be about the economy, energy or health care, McCain faced questions about Obama's foreign trip, and spent as much time reacting to his opponent as pushing his own domestic plans. He seemed to talk less about the future and more about the past, and did not hide his annoyance that Obama was still refusing to support the US troop escalation, which McCain championed, that has helped improve security in Iraq, and that, from McCain's point of view, made Obama's trip to Iraq possible.
"McCain is having a disastrous week," said Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who led Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign this year. "It would have been better if he had just kept a low profile and stayed out of the limelight."
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| This article on the national political campaigns in the United States is from The New York Times. It was specially selected and prepared by the editors of The New York Times News Service. |
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