McCain Goes It Alone in New Hampshire, by Design

With the political world focused on Iowa, Iowa, Iowa, only one man remained to trudge through the bitter cold of northern New Hampshire on Monday in search of votes: Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

As the temperature dropped to 6 below zero and gusty winds blanketed the ground with several inches of snow, it was no accident that McCain was alone among the eight presidential candidates in visiting New Hampshire this week: His entire strategy is based on winning the primaries here Feb. 1 and in South Carolina 18 days later.

“It’s a very high-risk campaign we’re running,” McCain said as his bus drove through sludge and snow in northern New Hampshire. “I feel sometimes like the [flying] Wallendas.”

After spending Monday and Tuesday morning in New Hampshire, McCain will look to strengthen his campaign in another way by doing back-to-back $1,000-a-person fund-raisers in New York--his first after a month of intense campaigning--including one sponsored by Bloomberg CEO Michael Bloomberg and another by Seagram’s head Edgar Bronfman.

From the very start, McCain’s strategists decided to forego Iowa, whose complex caucus system requires massive organization to get out the vote. Instead, his strategists banked on New Hampshire, a state far more attuned to his reformist image, to get a good buzz going in political and media circles.

The idea is simple. If McCain wins in New Hampshire, he will have nearly three weeks to trumpet the victory before competing in a second race in South Carolina. And in South Carolina, with the nation’s heaviest concentration of veterans, McCain’s POW status and longtime military service could bring in enough votes to unseat Texas Gov. George W. Bush, who currently has a strong lead in the state.

John Weaver, McCain’s political director, said it would have taken a month of campaign appearances and at least $2 million to even make a dent in the outcome of the Iowa vote.

“There was never any doubt about our decision,” Weaver said.

The strategy is admittedly chancy. McCain won’t say he has to win outright in New Hampshire, nor will he give a percentage of the vote he has to hit in order to remain viable. But the most recent New Hampshire poll, released this weekend by Dartmouth College and the Associated Press, shows McCain leading Bush by nine points, a finding that puts immense pressure on McCain to win.

McCain only says he must create the “perception” that he won--a perception largely formed by the media and pundits.

“The judgments are made by the talking heads. They decide what’s credible, what isn’t. I don’t know what’s good, what’s a bust, particularly in my case,” McCain said. However, he did offer one prediction: “I think it’s going to be very close here in New Hampshire, very close.”

McCain also plans this week to go campaigning in New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and South Carolina, all of which vote on or before March 7.

“You’ve got to touch base in some of these other states,” he said. “You’ve got to hop into these places. You can’t just show up the day before.”

McCain spent Monday on a series of typical stops through New Hampshire, including his 93th, 94th and 95th town hall meetings, a stop at Calef’s country store and a speech before the Rochester Rotary Club.

In Gilford, N.H., about 200 people got up before 7:30 a.m. on a freezing cold Martin Luther King Day holiday to hear McCain speak at the local fire department.

As is typical in McCain’s appearances, he spoke only briefly, then took questions from the audience.

Bill Akerley, 38, told McCain that he thought the U.S. sent far too much aid to foreign governments. McCain gently disagreed, telling Akerley that it was in the country’s best interests, so long as the money was used wisely.

Afterward, Akerley said McCain won his vote by not ducking the question or simply agreeing with him.

“I don’t believe Bush is as much a straight talker as McCain,” he said.