After a quiet weekend, Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., is turning his focus to two key events in Michigan Tuesday: a speech at the Detroit Economic Club and the CNBC/MSNBC/Wall Street Journal Republican debate in Dearborn. He also released a Web ad in the state featuring Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and footage from McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
Michigan bumped up its primary to Jan. 15, making it one of the nation’s first voting states and in turn, a new battleground for the Republican candidates. Dan Nowicki of the Arizona Republic notes that while McCain won the Michigan primary in 2000, “this time he will face former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was born in Detroit and whose father, the late George Romney, was a popular governor of Michigan.”
Over the weekend, the Arizona senator received some up-close-and-personal media coverage from The New York Times. In a Sunday article, Mark Leibovich looks at the impact McCain’s earlier campaign staffing and fundraising problems have had on his demeanor.
“Here is Mr. McCain, the happy warrior on a last mission, an odd mix of liberated and subdued,” Leibovich writes. “Between jokes, he is steadfast in his support for the present course in Iraq, his voice hushing to a near-whisper during paeans to the United States military.”
McCain does seem in a jovial mood. At a campaign stop in South Carolina last week, he said as president he would appoint former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan to lead an overhaul of the U.S. tax code.
“If he’s alive or dead it doesn’t matter,” McCain said. “If he’s dead, just prop him up and put some dark glasses on him like, like ‘Weekend at Bernie’s.’”
Last week, several McCain supporters published opinion pieces about why they think the senator should be the next president. George P. Shultz, Henry A. Kissinger, Alexander M. Haig Jr., Lawrence S. Eagleburger, James R. Schlesinger, John F. Lehman Jr., R. James Woolsey Jr., and Robert C. McFarlane endorsed McCain in National Review. And Raymond Burton, executive councilor for New Hampshire’s District 1, and Jim O’Brien, executive director of the Granite State Conservation Voters wrote in an op-ed in the Concord Monitor that “John McCain is the only Republican to step up and make climate change a top tier issue.”
Looking ahead, after Tuesday’s debate in Michigan on economic issues, McCain is scheduled to fly on to Iowa for a health care roundtable on Wednesday. Later in the week, he is expected to roll out his health platform.
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