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That's the state where, after upsetting Bush by 19 points in New Hampshire, McCain crashed and burned five years ago. His advisers say South Carolina is more welcoming territory now and indicative of how the broader political landscape has shifted for McCain. In 2000, the state's Republican machinery was working against him. But his allies are running much of it now. Former Congressmen Mark Sanford and Lindsey Graham, two of only a handful of elected officials to back him then, are the Governor and Senator. "They are the new Establishment in South Carolina," says Richard Quinn, who was McCain's consultant there five years ago. What's more, he says, the people who voted for McCain the last time would do it again, and "43% next time would be enough for a landslide victory, if it's a multicandidate situation."
When asked, and he often is, McCain always says he will not make up his mind whether to run again until after the 2006 congressional elections. But the team behind his 2000 campaign has been quietly putting the pieces in place for 2008. Last month they reactivated the political action committee named Straight Talk America, after his old campaign bus, that had been dormant since 2003. His mother Roberta, 93, told the New Yorker in May, "I think he's running for President." McCain's romance with the media rolls on not just in politically curious magazines but also in lifestyle publications like Men's Journal, in which a writer gushed about his access to McCain. A&E made a TV movie based on McCain's best-selling autobiography as the son and grandson of Navy admirals who endured 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. McCain has another book, about building moral character in children, due in October.
McCain has pushed to repair his relations with the party's national establishment, starting with Bush. Over coffee at a shop across from the White House in the spring of 2004, Karl Rove and John Weaver, chief political strategists for Bush and McCain, respectively, agreed to bury the feud. Then the Senator began campaigning for Bush in earnest, underscoring the President's view that the war in Iraq is a struggle between good and evil that helps keep America safe. Says a Bush adviser: "He earned some legitimate notches on his belt for 2004. He'll have additional credibility with Republicans."
If nothing else, McCain's people hope these efforts will ensure that Bush remains neutral in 2008, both publicly and privately. "He would genuinely look as favorably on John McCain as he would anyone else, and that's saying a lot," says a Bush strategist. Political watchers read more than a little significance into the fact that Bush media consultant Mark McKinnon, who set up the Rove-Weaver peace conference, let it be known in June that he will support McCain unless Jeb Bush or Condoleezza Rice runs. McKinnon's move caught most in the White House by surprise, but it has made McCain and his advisers even more optimistic that the stars are aligning for him this time around. "He just sort of thinks the physics will take over," says a strategist. "He may be bigger than the primaries in 2008." But some in McCain's orbit are worried he is becoming too confident. Says another adviser: "He thinks that it's his for the taking. I'm not sure that he deserves to be that optimistic. The right wing really distrusts John McCain."