The GOP hopes that character is trump

ST. PAUL
A HURRICANE can be a pretty good political ally. Certainly Hurricane Gustav did John McCain several large favors: It blew George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney away from town and focused public attention on the drama of a natural disaster rather than the detritus of a political one.

Further, it distracted some attention from several of the inconvenient details of Sarah Palin's family life, which the McCain campaign scattered before the Labor Day winds.

Yes, the unpopular incumbent was slated to deliver a short address via satellite last night. But Bush's Monday absence let the McCain team turn day one into a commercial for Republican competence and caring - a presentation highlighted by a philanthropic pitch from Laura Bush and Cindy McCain.

Still, an accommodating hurricane can do only so much. As we've seen in past presidential elections, it's ideology and character, and not claimed competence, that matters most.

This year, the GOP is left to hope that character is trump. Why? Because McCain, like the Republicans assembled here, is out of sync with the country on some of the major issues of this election.

Running in less polarized 2000, McCain could be the candidate of both moderate Republicans and independents. In the roiled seascape of 2008, however, a dangerous stretch of open water separates his stands from the views of most voters.

Although the selection of the lightly experienced Palin is an obvious exercise in identity politics, Palin is even further from the mainstream than McCain on abortion rights. Polls consistently show that a majority of Americans favor keeping abortion legal in most cases, while McCain and Palin both oppose abortion rights. McCain, however, at least favors exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and the life of the mother; the only exception Palin has supported is to protect the life of the mother.

A new New York Times/CBS News survey highlights other areas where McCain and the GOP are out of sync.

For example, 80 percent of GOP delegates and 70 percent of Republican voters think the United States was right to invade Iraq; but among a sample of all voters, only 37 percent said we should have.

Asked if it is more important to provide healthcare to all Americans or hold down taxes, 53 percent of Republican voters came down on the side of restraining taxes, compared with 40 percent who favored universal healthcare. That's essentially McCain's position, and it's also out of the mainstream. According to the new poll, 67 percent of voters favor extending health coverage, compared with 27 percent who think holding down taxes should take precedence.

No wonder, then, that the GOP is hoping for a Gipper gestalt. Ronald Reagan won in 1980 despite being out of sync with voters on some key issues, notes longtime Republican operative Ron Kaufman. "It's about leadership," he declares.

"There are some issues people are not going to agree with John McCain on and there were some issues people didn't agree with Ronald Reagan on," said former New Jersey GOP governor Tom Kean, who chaired the 9/ll Commission.

What voters are really looking for, Kean maintained, is "a commander in chief . . . who at a very difficult time in world history can make the best possible decisions when confronted with the unexpected."

But did McCain really show that kind of judgment in supporting the Iraq war, which turned up neither weapons of mass destruction nor operational ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda?

Well, said Kean, the CIA had believed that there were such weapons. And McCain was right about the surge, he added.

But didn't Barack Obama show better judgment in opposing the war?

Kean struggled a bit with that one.

"I like Barack Obama," he said. "I agreed with him" on the war.

Still, in the end, McCain would make the better commander in chief, he maintained.

Right now, the American people seem to agree, so McCain's best hope is to focus the fall decision on biography.

But if the campaign turns on the major issues, the chasm between the Republican base and swing voters will prove much harder to bridge.

Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com.