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State gives McCain big smile
Cheering crowds greet him at every stop
Thursday, February 24, 2000
By JOEL CONNELLY
Sen. John McCain, riding into Washington on a wave of national publicity from his big win over Texas Gov. George W. Bush in Tuesday's Michigan primary, sought to keep the momentum going by appealing for what he called "a party of addition and not division."
McCain is hoping that his one primary-at-a-time strategy will find its next fertile ground here next Tuesday, in what he described as "a reform-oriented, populist state with a strong environmental consciousness."
The Arizona senator, who also landed a primary win in his home state Tuesday, appealed to Republican voters to support a candidacy that was carried to victory in Michigan and New Hampshire by crossover independent and Democratic voters.
McCain joked about what he called the fear generated in the GOP establishment by his attacks on pork barrel spending.
He extolled former Washington Sen. Dan Evans, who is backing him, but noted he has had conflicts with Sen. Slade Gorton, a Bush backer and member of the Senate Republican leadership.
"I know I have battled him (Gorton) on pork barreling and earmarking projects since he entered the Senate," McCain said. "That's why he attacked me on the Senate floor."
In interviews with Northwest reporters between campaign stops, McCain did not conceal his fury at TV attack ads, push polls and other tactics used by Bush and his supporters to beat him last Saturday in South Carolina. He singled out the tactics of pro-Bush TV evangelists of the Christian right.
"He (Bush) proudly displayed his relationship with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and all the hate stuff. He's going to carry that for the rest of the campaign," McCain said on a flight from Spokane to Seattle.
McCain noted that the Bush campaign has filled the airwaves in Virginia and Washington with negative TV spots depicting McCain as a phony reformer.
"I'm going to remind him that he is no more a reformer than I am an astronaut," McCain said.
Mike Murphy, a top McCain adviser, offered to put up $1,000 if either Bush strategist Karl Rove or former Christian Coalition Director Ralph Reed would take a polygraph test disavowing involvement with a vitriolic phone message in which Robertson described McCain as a threat to Christians.
Mindy Tucker, a Bush aide, responded by saying that McCain is a poor loser.
"Senator McCain can continue to make excuses for his loss in South Carolina and continue to pit Americans against each other," she said. "But George W. Bush is going to continue to focus on his message of compassionate conservatism, which drew thousands of new voters to the polls in South Carolina and to carry that message to places like Washington state."
Bush is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Sunday and has scheduled election-eve appearances in the state on Monday.
McCain also was strongly critical of the Bob Jones University appearance at which Bush kicked off his South Carolina campaign. The university bans interracial dating by its students. Its leaders have described Roman Catholicism as a cult and depicted the pope as the antiChrist.
"Sure," McCain replied when asked if he would have spoken at the college, "I would have told them they were cruel idiots. The ban on interracial dating is offensive to me, as the father of a girl from Bangladesh. When they describe the pope as the antiChrist, it is offensive not only to Catholics but to all Americans."
During an appearance at Gonzaga University, a Catholic university in Spokane, McCain was asked why he refused to support removal of the Confederate battle flag that flies atop the South Carolina statehouse.
"I saw Governor Bush avoid the question: What is your response?" asked Nathan Palmer, 22, a Gonzaga senior.
"I don't believe we should intervene in a state issue," McCain replied in a restatement of what he said last week in South Carolina. He added that when Arizona debated whether to adopt the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as a holiday, "We did not like it when a politician with ambitions was parachuted into our state and told us what to do."
The answer disappointed Palmer. "I don't think the response was adequate," he said. "I was much more impressed when the Democratic candidates, Gore and Bradley, said take it down."
At stake in Tuesday's primary are 12 of the 37 delegates Washington will send to this summer's Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
McCain has hoped for a series of momentum-building victories leading up to March 7, when populous California and New York hold their primaries.
A victory Feb. 29 in Washington "will help a lot in California," Murphy said. "It will give specific momentum which is priceless in a race like this."
McCain spoke to a number of issues yesterday, offering more specifics on foreign policy than domestic concerns. These included:
"I will not add environmental or labor conditions to any trade agreements," McCain told the Rotary. But he pledged not to ignore working conditions or environmental pollution.
"I want China to know the consequences of aggression would far exceed anything they would gain from it," he said.
"Most bilingual education programs have failed to achieve their goal," he said.
McCain said yesterday that he objected "to the process" by which spending items were included in the 2000 budget, not necessarily the appropriation itself.
"I'm not against salmon recovery," he said. "I am against a process that doesn't allow fair competition (for federal dollars)."
P-I reporter Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattle-pi.com
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT
The state seemed to be smiling on McCain yesterday. He drew an overflow crowd of college students in Spokane, gained a standing ovation from the Seattle Rotary Club and reveled in the company of fellow ex-Vietnam POWs and Theodore Roosevelt's granddaughter on a trip across the water to Bremerton, where several thousand cheering supporters greeted him.
Edith Williams, 82, of Vashon Island, a granddaughter of Teddy Roosevelt, cheers Sen. John McCain, center, during a cruise to Bremerton yesterday.
Mike Urban/P-I
"I'm a proud conservative Republican. I am a Reagan Republican," he told the Seattle Rotary Club. "Have no doubt about that. I have to convince and tell our Republican Party establishment: It's great over here. Come on in. Join us. Join us in this effort to be an inclusive party. Join us in this effort to reach out."
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