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While a handful of basketball fans watched the Auburn-Alabama game at the Willie’s sports bar in Kenwood on Feb. 22, a few dozen others gathered for an entirely different, but closer, contest on the big-screen TV.
They thought their team would come out on top, but not by much — maybe a few points.
But when it became clear that they were backing a winner, according to the CNN exit poll results, they stood up and chanted.
“GO, JOHN, GO! GO, JOHN, GO! GO, JOHN, GO!”
Four days later, with victories in the Michigan and Arizona Republican primaries behind him, Sen. John McCain crossed Ohio via I-71, starting at a Cleveland market in the morning, stopping in Columbus for a town hall meeting at Ohio State University and finishing with a book signing at Joseph-Beth Booksellers and a small rally at Lunken Airport that night.
This time, the word was out, thanks in part to a heaping of local newspaper and TV coverage. A larger, more enthusiastic crowd gathered at Joseph-Beth in Norwood to get an autographed copy of Faith of My Fathers — the book he wrote about his father and grandfather — to show their support for the senator or just to see a man who might become president.
McCain’s three-bus caravan arrived there at 5:30 p.m., 30 minutes late, although no one really seemed to mind.
While a handful of basketball fans watched the Auburn-Alabama game at the Willie’s sports bar in Kenwood on Feb. 22, a few dozen others gathered for an entirely different, but closer, contest on the big-screen TV.
They thought their team would come out on top, but not by much — maybe a few points.
But when it became clear that they were backing a winner, according to the CNN exit poll results, they stood up and chanted.
“GO, JOHN, GO! … GO, JOHN, GO! … GO, JOHN, GO!”
Four days later, with victories in the Michigan and Arizona Republican primaries behind him, Sen. John McCain crossed Ohio via I-71, starting at a Cleveland market in the morning, stopping in Columbus for a town hall meeting at Ohio State University and finishing with a book signing at Joseph-Beth Booksellers and a small rally at Lunken Airport that night.
This time, the word was out, thanks in part to a heaping of local newspaper and TV coverage. A larger, more enthusiastic crowd gathered at Joseph-Beth in Norwood to get an autographed copy of Faith of My Fathers — the book he wrote about his father and grandfather — to show their support for the senator or just to see a man who might become president.
McCain’s three-bus caravan arrived there at 5:30 p.m., 30 minutes late, although no one really seemed to mind. People began showing up at Joseph-Beth around 5:30 a.m. that day — nearly four hours before the store opened — just to get a line number.
A crush of media and supporters greeted McCain at the front door, following him up the stairs to the travel and history sections. Halfway up the stairs, McCain stopped to acknowledge the crowd, who bought 1,000 copies of his book that day.
The senator relayed his usual campaign messages: paying down the national debt, saving Social Security and Medicare, campaign finance reform and ending corporate tax breaks and certain agricultural subsidies. He also promised to sign every copy of his book, no matter how long it took.
And then came his signature statement, the words everyone wanted to hear after enduring eight years of Bill Clinton — the president who, during a deposition, needed a definition of the word “is.”
“I promise you, as President of the United States, I will never lie to you,” McCain said.
The crowd reciprocated with a healthy round of applause and cheers.
Then McCain went to work. The line moved at a steady, even slightly leisurely, pace, while McCain made eye contact with almost everyone, offering an occasional self-deprecating remark.
“I’m sorry the old geezer couldn’t do it right,” McCain said in his hushed, gravely voice after a failed high-five attempt with a little girl.
He kept it up for nearly three hours, then got back on the bus to meet several hundred more people still waiting for him at Lunken Airport, even though he was about two hours late.
Crossing Enemy Lines
Part of journalism is summing up trends and groups so they can be better understood. As the traditional views go, Democrats use government programs to solve problems, are backed by trial lawyers and labor unions and are pro-choice. Republicans favor smaller government and lower taxes, are backed by big business and are pro-life.
But McCain’s backers don’t seem to fit into these pigeonholes.
Take Doug Gorby, 32, and Ellen Kent, 26, both of Hyde Park, and Crystal Allen, 24, of Mount Adams. The trio registered as McCain supporters through his Web site, then learned of the Willie’s gathering via e-mail. Sitting in a corner under a TV set at the sports bar on Feb. 22, they talked about why they chose McCain.
While Gorby and Allen have usually backed Republicans, Kent has supported Democrats back to George Dukakis, although she said she never was a Clinton fan. And all three are at odds with McCain on certain issues. For Kent, it’s abortion, while Gorby is concerned about the environment — not one of McCain’s strongest topics.
Despite all of that, they’re still attracted to McCain’s personality, his idealism and his life’s story.
“I really like hearing him say that he wants people to commit to a cause greater than themselves,” Allen said. “I think his campaign is really about that. I don’t really think that about George W. Bush.” That’s coming from a woman who worked in the 1992 campaign of Bush’s father, when she lived on military base with her parents in Abeline, Tex.
“If it was just (about abortion), I would be voting for (Al Gore or Bill Bradley),” said Kent, who is just as concerned about having a president with a strong foreign policy background.
They’re willing to look past McCain’s voting record, in part because McCain didn’t try to defend every vote, such as his opposition to declaring Martin Luther King Jr. Day an Arizona holiday.
“I really liked that he was willing to admit his faults,” Allen said.
And what about the argument that McCain’s independent and Democratic supporters will jump to the Democrats in November? During the Joseph-Beth event, a Bush supporter dressed in 1960s-era hippie garb — complete with sandals, a peace symbol necklace and headband, blue-tinted shades and a T-shirt covered by red sickles and hammers — held up signs reading “Liberals for McCain” and “Honk if U R A Liberal.”
Kent, the Democrat, said she won’t vote for anyone but McCain in the fall.
“I don’t trust Gore,” she said. “It would be nice to have a president you can believe in the beginning and believe in the end.”
Gorby agreed. Allen said McCain is more inclusive than the other candidates.
“That’s what I like about him — he welcomes everyone,” Allen said. “I don’t know why the country has to be just Democrats and Republicans.”
At the book signing, it was even easier to find McCain supporters who wouldn’t usually be at the same political event.
“During the impeachment, I swore I’d never vote for another Republican as long as I live,” said Jim Eichenlaub, 28, of Mount Lookout.
Eichenlaub has been a staunch Clinton supporter since he was elected in 1992, “even, and especially, during the impeachment process.” Now that Clinton is leaving office, Eichenlaub said, no other candidate is as attractive to him, especially concerning campaign finance reform.
“I just see McCain as something different,” he said. “I think he’s a much more powerful candidate than Gore. So is Bush.”
Tim Clarke, 77, of Hyde Park has been a Republican for decades, through its ups and downs, including Richard Nixon’s years, which he called “a bad show.” Agreeing with a passer-by, Clarke said McCain’s popularity is tied to “duty, honor and country.” He said he supports McCain because McCain is the best chance for Republicans to take over the White House.
“Bush is too much with the system and too far right,” said Clarke, who helped Bush’s father campaign against Reagan in 1980. “I think McCain is on a roll.”
An Uphill Battle
So few prominent Ohio Republicans are supporting McCain that most of them are named DeWine.
Cincinnati City Councilman Pat DeWine chose McCain after reading Faith of My Fathers a few months ago and because McCain seems like someone he could believe.
By backing McCain, the younger DeWine is following in the footsteps of his father, Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, who chose to endorse McCain in the fall, back when Bush looked unbeatable. DeWine is one of only four U.S. senators behind McCain.
The elder DeWine, who traveled with McCain from Cleveland to Cincinnati on Feb. 26, isn’t bothered that he’s in a politically lonely position or that McCain isn’t being endorsed by many politicians.
“I don’t think that it matters,” DeWine said. “I don’t think people care.”
What does matter, he said, is that McCain communicates his conservative message and electability.
“This is really a David-and-Goliath campaign down here,” said Mark Policinski, McCain’s southwest Ohio campaign coordinator.
Policinski has known about McCain for years. He learned of McCain’s prisoner of war story through a common friend when Policinski worked for the Department of Commerce from 1984 to 1987. McCain nearly died a few times during the Vietnam War — his plane caught fire on an aircraft carrier and crashed behind enemy lines. After the second incident, McCain spend the next 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, finally returning home in 1973.
“I’ve always liked McCain,” Policinski said.
In October, after spending 11 years with a publishing company, Policinski began talking with other McCain friends about putting together a campaign. But it was just talk until December, when Policinski started working with Dave Ford, a veteran who fought in Vietnam with McCain. Now Ford is McCain’s Ohio campaign chair.
“It was pretty slim pickings until New Hampshire,” Policinski said. After McCain’s victory there, $1 million poured into McCain’s campaign through his Web site. The total for McCain contributions via the site now stands at more than $3 million.
Besides being a powerful fundraising tool, McCain’s Web site is proving to be a speedy organizer. Nearly all of the people who came to Willie’s had registered at the site as a supporter. McCain’s national coordinators passed the Cincinnati list to Policinski, who put together the Willie’s event.
“I don’t know how we could have done this without e-mail,” Policinski said. “There’s no way you have done this four years ago.”
And many of the Willie’s crowd, including Gorby and Allen, took home phone lists of 200 or 300 people to call to further spread the word about McCain.
A Growing Army
Even though he was two hours late, several hundred people waited for McCain at Lunken Airport after the Joseph-Beth signing. They crowded along a chain-link fence, holding homemade signs reading “McCain Majority,” “Wyoming H.S. 1st time voters” and “Ohio = McCain Country.” A few held copies of Faith of My Fathers.
Chants of “Go, John, Go!” mixed with “John Mc-Cain! John Mc-Cain!” after the senator finished his speech, dismounted from his podium/airplane stairs and headed for the fence. Circled by about 20 members of the media, McCain could have been mistaken for a Rock star.
As McCain walked along the fence, people ran ahead of him on the other side in hopes of shaking his hand. A couple hundred yards later, McCain switched direction and shook hands with dozens more.
“We trust you!,” one woman shouted.
McCain’s clean slate, however, has developed a few cracks. The night before the Michigan primary, he OK’d thousands of automated phone calls focusing on Bush’s visit to Bob Jones University in South Carolina, a school that prohibits interracial dating, according to Associated Press reports. McCain campaign officials didn’t admit they approved the calls until the polls closed in Michigan.
For now, many are still willing to support McCain, despite past political differences. After nearly eight years of Clinton, we’re all looking for something to chase away the bad taste his lying has left in our mouths, even if the candidate hasn’t voted with us in the past.
Many see Gore, Clinton’s sidekick, and Bush, the $70 million man, as too close to Clinton’s flavor or as typical politicians. For now, McCain could be the mouthwash of choice. ©
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2000.