McCain Profile Rises as Bush Challenger

Granted, the Republican race for the White House is still shaping up as a walk for George W. Bush, with the Texas governor swimming in money, support and enthusiasm. But this week, the barest outlines of a challenge emerged--with the help of planning and luck--from Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Consider Tuesday, when McCain challenged the other contenders to back a nationwide $5-billion test of school vouchers for needy children.

He did it with a typically McCainian twist: He said he would pay for it by shutting down subsidies for the ethanol, sugar, gas and oil industries. McCain watchers could only chortle at the targets: Support for ethanol is virtually demanded of contestants in the Iowa caucuses, and oil and gas are the traditional bulwarks of the Texas economy.

Before the afternoon was out, Bush countered with a jab of his own, the endorsement of a governor--Arizona’s Jane Dee Hull.

If not quite a battle, at least it’s an engagement in the Republican contest, no small feat this year. McCain, analysts say, is maneuvering into place as the most electable of the non-Bush alternatives, even if his fate and that of the others still depend on a major Bush pratfall.

“McCain has done a nice job, not just this week but over time, in building a rationale for himself as the principled alternative . . . that he’s not just some hack out there offering himself to the highest bidder,” said Democratic strategist Roy Behr, who is unaligned in the presidential contest.

But, he added wryly, “it remains to be seen if it’s a winning strategy.”

It is, however, the only strategy open to McCain. He has $2 million in the bank to Bush’s $37 million, leaving him at a huge financial disadvantage. Having alienated some members of the GOP’s Washington leadership and of the religious right, he cannot command the hearts of its most passionate ground troops.

His strategy by default is to run straight at Bush with a host of issues that reinforce his heroism as a Vietnam prisoner of war and his iconoclasm as a member of the House and Senate.

McCain’s strategy was evident on his announcement tour this week, which took him to Simi Valley and San Diego. He referred to his candidacy as a “mission,” the better to underscore his background of service and highlight Bush’s lack of foreign policy experience. His denunciations of the way campaigns are financed and his gibes at subsidies struck at Bush’s backers and bankroll. And he almost never insulted Bush by name, the better to appear above it all.

But McCain’s biggest burst of publicity this week came by happenstance. Just before his announcement tour began, McCain was peppered with questions about a newly published book by fellow GOP hopeful Patrick J. Buchanan that seemed to question U.S. involvement in World War II.

Saying he would not allow veterans and their families to be “besmirched,” McCain excoriated Buchanan, day after day. He challenged Bush to second his judgment that Buchanan had to leave the Republican Party.

Bush himself was fairly silent, contending that the conservative Buchanan’s view of history was wrong and that he looked forward to “whippin’ ” him in the primaries.

The differing approaches elegantly defined the two campaigns--McCain’s scrappy effort with nothing to lose, and Bush’s more complicated task of keeping conservatives happy during the primaries while still courting the centrists needed in the general election.

“He has to be respectful to the conservative part of the Republican Party, which is still a majority,” said GOP strategist Richard Temple. “If he is viewed as looking down on them, they will rebel.”

In California at least, where voters tend to favor more moderate candidates, some Republicans are concerned that Bush has yet to really take on the party’s far right. They argue that President Clinton’s razzing of Democratic liberals in the 1992 campaign helped create his image as a centrist.

“That’s a concern about Bush flying at 30,000 feet above the primary,” said one GOP strategist sympathetic to Bush. “We need--not a bloody fight--but we need a candidate who is legitimized.”

Others, however, argue that Bush is already so far ahead of the Republican field, and already adept at appealing to moderate voters that he would be foolish to change paths now. One small example: A recent private poll showed Bush beating Vice President Al Gore by 10 points in a key Inland Empire area--the same area where last year Democrat Gray Davis triumphed over Republican Dan Lungren by 20 points in his race for governor.

Bush’s advantages came into view during his spin across California this week, where he visited Bakersfield, Riverside and coastal areas that historically have swung to the winner of the national election. At each stop he scooped up money--$1 million this week alone--and laid the groundwork for the general election campaign.

McCain still must tread a strikingly difficult path.

“There is a hunger and a cynicism out there,” said campaign analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe. “The hunger will probably motivate many voters to overlook Bush stumbles that aren’t life-threatening, and the cynicism will probably motivate voters to take any charge thrown against him with a grain of salt.”

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Times staff writer Tony Perry contributed to this story.