McCain's Convention Chair Worked for Burma's Junta | Newsweek Scope

CAMPAIGN 2008
The Big Picture
Jessica Ramirez 11/10/2008 12:00:00 AM
In the hours before President George W. Bush was set to give his final State of the Union message last January, Sen. Barack Obama was already preparing his response. His campaign wasn't planning a press conference or appearances on network news. Instead, they shot and uploaded video of the democratic presidential candidate's comments onto the only site that could rival primetime power—Youtube.
CHAPTER 7
The Final Days
11/7/2008 12:00:00 AM
VII.The Obama campaign ran the biggest, best-financed get-out-the-vote campaign in the history of American politics. It wanted to turn out minorities and the young, groups that traditionally stay away from the polls. For the cautious, self-consciously virtuous Obamaites, this worthy goal posed some special challenges.
CHAPTER 5
Center Stage
Evan Thomas 11/6/2008 12:00:00 AM
In midsummer, the Obama campaign's computers were attacked by a virus. The campaign's tech experts spotted it and took standard precautions, such as putting in a firewall. At first, the campaign figured it was a routine "phishing" attack, using common methods. Or so it seemed. In fact, the campaign had been the target of sophisticated foreign cyber-espionage.
CHAPTER 4
Going Into Battle
Evan Thomas 11/6/2008 12:00:00 AM
McCain was not a natural orator on the stump. He had trouble reading from a teleprompter, and he had an odd way of smiling at inappropriate times, flashing an expression that looked more like a frozen rictus than a friendly grin. During one early debate, he smiled broadly as he discussed crushing the enemy in Iraq. McCain could be moody, and he did not try very hard to disguise his moods. One of his advisers used the word "heady" to describe the candidate. He meant that his speaking style was easily swayed by his emotions. McCain could look hot or riled up (his traveling buddy Lindsey Graham particularly affected his moods, for better and for worse), or he could appear wooden, even sullen. McCain was bored by dreary presentations of his own polling data, but he could get agitated reading about other people's polls in the press. His staff tried to keep away overstimulating distractions, but it was hopeless. During the campaign's low-budget period, when the candidate was traveling on the cut-rate airline JetBlue, he would get wound up watching political talk shows on the small video screen facing his seat.
How a ‘Nation of Whiners’ Struck Back
Daniel Gross 11/5/2008 12:00:00 AM
In 1992, for Bill Clinton, it was the economy, stupid. In 2008, for John McCain, it was the stupid economy. Exit polls showed that 62 percent of the electorate said the economy was the most important issue.
CHAPTER 2
Back From the Dead
Evan Thomas
Like a lot of Americans, Barack Obama says his favorite movie is "The Godfather." John McCain says his all-time favorite is "Viva Zapata!", a little-remembered, highly romanticized 1952 Marlon Brando biopic. The hero of the movie is Emiliano Zapata, the leader of a (briefly) successful peasant revolt in Mexico in the early 1900s. McCain loves the idea of a budget-class, guerrilla-style war against the corrupt establishment. He never got over being nostalgic about his 2000 insurgency against George W. Bush and the Republican Party leaders who had settled on George H.W. Bush's eldest son as heir apparent. Though himself the scion of a kind of warrior royalty—his father and grandfather had been admirals, and his mother came from a wealthy family—McCain was leery of the overprivileged (and hated being called a