Bush Has a New McCain Theory: Sneaky Dems

Gettysburg, as everyone knows, is in Pennsylvania, but George W. Bush can't wait that long. And so he's going to make his stand here, turning South Carolina into his battleground to once and for all dispel the notion that Republicans should consider voting for John McCain. Bush says he can certainly see why Democrats would; on Sunday he told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" that those sly Dems were planning on pulling the McCain lever just so they could stack the deck in favor of their candidate in the general election. Although this seems to veer dangerously close to the paranoid territory known as Perot-land (hmm... the Reform party doesneed a candidate), some polls do back up Bush's contention that he's the candidate who can beat Bradley/Gore. A Newsweek survey this week found that 52 percent of voters thought that Bush would be more likely to defeat the Democratic party's candidate, with only 31 percent talking up McCain.

One thing's for sure — Bush is nervous. Sure, everyone has been talking about firewalls; how W. doesn't need to worry because John Engler is going to wrap Michigan up in a nice blue box and personally deliver it to Austin; how there's no way in heck that McCain walks out of California a viable candidate. And yet Bush is worried, because even as a relative political neophyte he knows that the easiest and best way to stop your opponent is never to let him get started. So he's staking quite a bit of his capital here, both political — Bush says he won't pull ads attacking McCain, a move that could backfire — and fiscal: His impressive $70 million war chest could be down to just $18 million by the time polls close in the Palmetto State.

It just might be working. After McCain's big New Hampshire win vaulted him into a dead heat with Bush in South Carolina polls, McCain's momentum appears to have slowed, with the two remaining neck-and-neck over the past week. And if W.'s ads and newfound aggressiveness change some Republican hearts and minds while keeping Democrat and independent turnout low, South Carolina — and the GOP nomination — is his. The risk, of course, in staking everything is that while South Carolina could be his Gettysburg, it could also be his Waterloo.