|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
| THE MCCAIN FACTOR | |
 August 1, 2000  |
|
|
Where are the delegates for former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain?
|
|
ANNOUNCER: Please welcome the Senator from the great state of Arizona, John McCain! KWAME HOLMAN: When he arrived in Philadelphia this weekend, John McCain immediately began an emotional round of appearances before some of the most avid supporters of his aborted presidential campaign.
KWAME HOLMAN: McCain won seven state primaries and many convention delegates in this crowd were bound to him, so he chose this moment to release them, asking them to support Governor Bush, the final official act of his presidential campaign. SEN. JOHN McCAIN: This is a time for celebration. This is a time for happiness. And this is a time for us to look back with pleasure at the wonderful ride that we had. So at this time, I release all of these delegates. I hope you'll accept them, and thank you all for everything. And again, thank you so much. Thank you. |
|||||||||||||||||||
| A bittersweet moment | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
KWAME HOLMAN: It was a bittersweet moment for the former candidate and some of his most dedicated followers.
KWAME HOLMAN: At the major party conventions, the candidate who gets the most delegate votes wins the presidential nomination. But the process of selecting the delegates who come here varies from state to state. In some, it's based on the percentage of the primary vote a candidate receives. In others, the winner of the primary gets all the delegates. But in Michigan, John McCain won the popular vote, but lost the delegate count. SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Hey, how you doing? KWAME HOLMAN: McCain's victory in Michigan was fueled for the most part by independents and Democrats, who were allowed to vote in Michigan's open Republican primary. But among Republicans, McCain was beaten by George W. Bush 3-1, and that created a problem for McCain when it came time to select Michigan's convention delegates. Arcane nominating rules gave Michigan Republican insiders, most of them Bush supporters, the inside track to the convention. Michigan State Senator Joe Schwarz, the lone top Republican office holder to support John McCain, explained.
KWAME HOLMAN: When the caucuses were over, the majority of convention delegate slots were filled by Bush supporters. KWAME HOLMAN: Is that fair? STATE SEN. JOE SCHWARZ: No, it's not fair, but it's politics. It was something that there was no way we could get around. Our party rules did not allow us to get around it. We all walked away from that convention with a bad taste in our mouths. KWAME HOLMAN: Chuck Yob, a Bush supporter, is a member of the Michigan's Republican Party leadership. Yob said McCain tried to enlist him to help get a McCain delegate elected.
SPOKESMAN: Good morning, everybody. GROUP: Good morning. |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
| Inexperienced supporters | ||||||||||||||||||||
|
KWAME HOLMAN: At the Michigan delegation's headquarters this week, party regulars said the McCain supporters' lack of political experience worked against them.
KWAME HOLMAN: Delegate Kathleen Brang is from Pontiac, Michigan, and a solid Bush supporter. She was selected to go to Philadelphia even though McCain beat Bush in her congressional district. KATHLEEN BRANG: The three people that were elected from my district were people who have stood out in front of the polls on election day no matter if they're being rained on or snowed on. They're making the phone calls, they're delivering the literature, they've been fully involved. From my own self, I can tell you that for myself, almost all of my spare time goes to the Republican Party. So I think it squares very well with the delegates that they want to send Republicans that have an active history to the convention.
RUSTY HILLS, Chairman, Michigan's Republican Party: This is all inside baseball. I mean, the public is going to... frankly, politics is not a priority for a lot of people. They'll focus on politics probably beginning with the national convention. They're going to focus on the candidates. They're going to look at George W. Bush and Al Gore and make their decisions then. KWAME HOLMAN: And McCain backer Joe Schwarz agrees. JOE SCHWARZ: We're disappointed that more of our people aren't real McCain supporters, but by the same token, you can't look backward. You have to look out, not in, and that's what we are doing, and we are here to support Governor Bush. KWAME HOLMAN: But McCain supporters from the Northeast may not back Bush unless he embraces the centerpiece of the McCain platform, reform of campaign finance laws. KWAME HOLMAN: You want George W. Bush in his speech to say something significant about campaign finance reform, and if not, you and others from New England will get up and leave?
KWAME HOLMAN: And for good things to happen for George W. Bush in November, he may need the votes of the many McCain faithful. |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
 |
        |
|
| Support the kind of journalism done by the NewsHour...Become a member of your local PBS station. | ||
| ||
| PBS Online Privacy Policy Copyright ©1996- MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved. | ||
| ||
SEN.
JOHN McCAIN: I am very, very grateful to the people in this room who
spent their blood, sweat, and tears on behalf of this campaign. I will
always be grateful. I will never be able... I will never be able to
thank. 
WAYNE
MAC DONALD, New Hampshire Delegate: A lot of effort and time and hard
work went into it, and a lot was invested into it, emotionally and otherwise,
and you can't help but to think back about what went into it and maybe
what might have been. 
STATE
SEN. JOE SCHWARZ, Michigan Delegate: The Michigan state convention is
an interesting sort of an event, and that is that we meet in congressional
district caucuses and the people that have been the Republican powers
in the congressional district caucuses for years are still in power
and they run things pretty much the way they want to run them. And we
let the McCain people know in advance that there was going to be some
slippage, there was nothing we could do about it. 
CHUCK
YOB, Michigan Delegate: What happened was I was at my caucus. They put
John McCain on the phone-- I had a portable phone, and they put John
McCain on the phone and he said, "will you help me?" And I
said "sure, what do you want me to do?" And he said "I
want you to get up to the podium, take the microphone, and tell them
you want them to elect this particular fellow." Well, the problem
was the fellow he wanted me to elect, nobody knew him there, hardly,
and the person he was running against was the most popular person in
the county, so he won by a couple of votes.
KATHLEEN
BRANG, Michigan Delegate: People there just walking in for the very
first time to a state convention and don't know anyone, have no history
with the party, I think we're expecting too much to be elected to the
national convention. 
KWAME
HOLMAN: Rusty Hills, the state Republican chairman, says voters ultimately
will care little about such intra-party wrangling. 
DWIGHT
SOWELL, Massachusetts Delegate: Well, to be honest with you, there is
discussion that we're quite concerned about this. There's a lot of us
that worked hard on this campaign over money, over cleaning this act
up, and if our national candidate can't spit out a few words concerning
it, we're going to be concerned ourselves. So we hope that in the next
48 hours some good things can happen. We really do.