Lowering Expectations

The polls in Michigan had barely opened when John McCain and his top aides began lowering expectations for a win in the state's GOP presidential primary. Speaking to reporters traveling with him during his final push in the state on Tuesday morning, McCain joked that a victory in Michigan would be dependent on getting out not just Republican voters but "independents, vegetarians and Trotskyites." "No matter what, we have South Carolina and then Florida," McCain said. "I think we've got a ways to go before the nomination is clear."

The message wasn't much different from the senator's aides, who sought to shift the story onward to South Carolina, where McCain holds a slight lead in the polls. It wouldn't be surprising if Mitt Romney won in Michigan, McCain adviser Steve Schmidt told reporters Tuesday, because the former Massachusetts governor had run a "native son" campaign—a phrase McCain later repeated in his concession speech. "This won't have a huge impact downstream," Schmidt insisted. Even if McCain were to squeak out a victory, he said, it probably wouldn't mean a huge bump in the polls heading into South Carolina. It wasn't even noon when the spin began—a sign that the McCain campaign knew early that their man likely wouldn't win.

Indeed, exit poll results show that independent voters, who turned out for McCain in droves eight years ago when he won Michigan, stayed home this time. Yet not all of the McCain talk was spin. No doubt McCain would have liked a victory in Michigan—a win, his aides believe, would likely have knocked Romney out of serious contention for the nomination. That's one reason McCain mounted a last-minute push in the state over the weekend, in spite of having almost no organization here. Yet South Carolina has long been viewed as necessary to keeping McCain's nomination hopes alive—so necessary that when McCain's campaign imploded last summer amid shoddy fund-raising and staff upheaval, the senator focused much of his resources into two states: New Hampshire and South Carolina. Indeed, McCain didn't even stick around to find out what Michigan voters had decided. He flew directly to Charleston, S.C., and watched the results from there.

Part of McCain's focus on South Carolina seems personal. While he insists that he doesn't lose sleep over his loss here eight years ago, a win in South Carolina would have almost fairy-tale connotations for a senator whose reputation and family were notoriously slurred by a dirty-tricks campaign in 2000. Still, McCain insists that the biggest lesson from 2000 had nothing to do with negative campaigning. Asked last week what he's learned from 2000, McCain told NEWSWEEK that building a strong financial and political base in the states was crucial to anyone hoping to win the White House. It wasn't the dirty-tricks campaign that had hurt him, McCain insisted. "Bush ran a better campaign," McCain said.

To that end, McCain has focused heavily on securing key endorsements in the state—an important step not least because independent voters, who have so often turned out for McCain, aren't allowed to vote in the South Carolina GOP primary. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of McCain's closest friends in the Senate, is backing him, and McCain is joined onstage at events throughout the state by two of the most powerful Republicans in South Carolina: Bobby Harrell, the speaker of the state House of Representatives, and Attorney General Henry McMaster.

But there are at least two unknowns about McCain's strategy heading into the GOP primary this Saturday. For one, it's unclear how the Arizona senator is doing financially. His campaign has so far declined to release numbers on how he did financially during the final quarter of 2007, though Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, insisted last week that he'll have the money it takes to compete up to Super Tuesday. The second unknown is how much importance voters in South Carolina will put on issues of security, which is McCain's key talking point in a state heavy on military families, versus values, which is Mike Huckabee's biggest selling point. (Last Sunday morning Huckabee, a former Southern Baptist minister, guest-preached before two of the state's largest congregations.) According to the latest polls in the state, McCain has a narrow lead over Huckabee.