Tuesday Shapes Up as Judgment Day for Bush, McCain

After an extended duel that’s captivated much of the nation, George W. Bush and John McCain face judgment day Tuesday, with coast-to-coast primaries that could abruptly decide their contest for the Republican presidential nomination.

As the two candidates careen into the single biggest day on the primary calendar--13 states will vote on the GOP side--it is Texas Gov. Bush who appears to have all the momentum. Late polls in the key states showed Bush leading everywhere outside the Northeast and gaining ground even there; the latest surveys in New York, where McCain had led recently, now show the two men step-for-step.

California and New York, the biggest prizes, loom as the hinges in Tuesday’s balloting--which will select almost one-third of the delegates to the GOP convention.

With California allocating its 162 delegates on a winner-take-all basis, the victor is virtually guaranteed the lead in the race to accumulate the 1,034 delegates needed for nomination. Polls show Bush holding a significant edge in the battle for California’s delegates as well as a solid lead in Ohio, another mega-state voting Tuesday. That leaves New York as the key to McCain’s hopes.

If McCain can’t hold on to New York--now the battleground for a fierce struggle on television, radio and telephone--even his own advisors acknowledge the senator from Arizona will have difficulty maintaining his viability as a candidate, and even more important, constructing a realistic scenario to reach a delegate majority. “We’ve got to win New York,” John Weaver, McCain’s senior political advisor, says flatly.

As a candidate, McCain has shown great resilience, recovering from a crushing loss in South Carolina last month to win Michigan and Arizona just three days later. But with Bush now leading not only in most states voting Tuesday but also the nine Mountain and Southern states impending on March 10 and March 14, the weight of the Texas governor’s advantages is pressing down on the insurgent more heavily than ever.

“Bush’s strength as a national candidate is emerging,” says Karl Rove, the Texas governor’s chief strategist. “The work that he’s done over the past year to lay down the ability to campaign everywhere, and compete everywhere, and win everywhere is now becoming clear.”

On the Democratic side, the 16 contests Tuesday appear poised to end the race in a rout. Vice President Al Gore leads former Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey in the most recent surveys in every state voting this week and next--by imposing margins in almost all of them.

A Times Poll last week showed Gore leading Bradley in California by almost 5 to 1; even in New York, Bradley’s backyard, Gore’s lead has stretched to about 2 to 1.

Though Bradley aides still talk gamely of picking off delegates from individual congressional districts--like those in the San Francisco Bay Area--the candidate himself seemed to recognize the inevitable with his docile, valedictory performance at last week’s debate in Los Angeles.

“It’s interesting the other night that Bradley chose to buy five minutes on television right around the time of ‘ER,’ because he has flat-lined,” says Democratic consultant Jim Margolis, who is neutral in the contest. “His campaign is over for all practical purposes.”

The Republican race, by contrast, has defied predictions of imminent resolution and may do so again. Yet most analysts agree that, as the focus of the GOP race shifts from momentum and spin toward accumulating delegates, Bush’s organizational advantages--not to mention his consistent 40-percentage-point leads in polls among core Republicans--will come more powerfully into play.

In just eight days, starting Tuesday, the GOP will select more than 1,000 delegates--over half the total in the nominating contest. Unless McCain can somehow win both California and New York, Bush could emerge from that scrum with at least 80% of the delegates he needs for the nomination, operatives in both campaigns agree.

At that point, McCain could still prolong the race by winning Illinois on March 21 and other Northern states that follow; but he would be living on the edge of elimination. “There would be tremendous pressure,” acknowledges Weaver. “We almost would have to sweep the board of the states [outside the South] after March 14.”

McCain approaches Tuesday’s challenge on a down note, having suffered through one of his worst weeks in the campaign. First he was swept in last Tuesday’s contests in Virginia, Washington and North Dakota. Then he spent most of last week embroiled in arguments over his denunciations of religious conservative leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell--a controversy that almost totally eclipsed his message of political and fiscal reform and may have alienated the independent voters attracted as much to his nonpolitical style as to his agenda.

“People, I think, are tired of the attack-counterattack, and for McCain, as the guy running ‘straight talk,’ that hurts your image more than Bush’s,” says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute of Public Opinion in New York. “He has to get back on message. People want to hear about moral leadership, Social Security, campaign finance.”

McCain is trying to make that turn, with an upbeat final pair of television ads that emphasize most of those themes. But by so antagonizing conservatives, McCain has freed Bush to also shift back toward courting the moderates the senator needs--as Bush did by emphasizing education in last week’s California debate. At the same time, McCain is still facing waves of attack ads from Bush and groups favorable to him--like the Texas millionaires (and Bush contributors) who launched a massive television ad campaign in New York, California and Ohio last week denouncing the senator’s environmental record. In a Federal Election Commission complaint, McCain has accused Bush of coordinating the attacks, which the Bush campaign has denied.

The intensity and emotion of these charges underscore the stakes in Tuesday’s balloting. Here’s a snapshot of the key states that will be voting, with the delegates at stake for each party listed parenthetically.

New York (101 R, 243 D)

Not since Ronald Reagan challenged Gerald R. Ford in 1976 has New York seen a genuinely competitive GOP primary; for all the intervening years, the state party manipulated the rules to prevent any real opposition to its favored candidate. It tried again this year, but McCain won a court fight--and used the lockout as an issue against Bush.

The state is making up for lost time. In New York, politics is a World Wrestling Federation-sanctioned event, and this year is no exception. Targeting moderate women, Bush has barraged McCain with radio ads accusing him of opposing funding for breast cancer research; Gov. George Pataki, Bush’s top supporter, last week accused McCain of continually “voting against the interests of New York.” McCain is firing back with radio ads and calls to Roman Catholics who may be aggrieved over Bush’s visit to Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian school that has been criticized for anti-Catholic views.

The sheer organizational heft of the GOP establishment gives Bush an edge. And he’s helped also because the primary is open only to Republicans. But nearly half of the state GOP voters consider themselves moderates and they give McCain 20- to 30-point leads in the latest surveys--enough to keep him in range. Buoyed by conservative support, Bush holds a 4-percentage-point lead, according to a survey released Saturday by independent pollster John Zogby.

California (162 R, 367 D)

Under California’s new blanket primary system, any voter can back any candidate, regardless of affiliation. But only the votes of party members will count toward the allocation of delegates.

That obscure rule might prove the single most important factor in deciding the Republican nominee this year. In the blanket vote, where the votes of independents and Democrats count, surveys show McCain right on Bush’s heels. But among Republicans, Bush enjoys a consistent 20-point (or more) lead.

At the least, McCain hopes for a split decision in which he wins the popular vote if not the delegates. That could underscore his argument that he is the more electable candidate in the fall, especially if he wins in New York as well.

But McCain may have hurt himself by pulling out of Thursday’s debate in Los Angeles, then reversing course and agreeing to appear via satellite--which left him a disembodied presence on the stage with Bush and Alan Keyes. “You don’t thumb your nose at the nation’s largest state,” says analyst Sherry Bebitch Jeffe of Claremont Graduate University.

McCain’s larger problem is the staunchly conservative nature of the state GOP electorate: In the latest Los Angeles Times Poll, almost two-thirds of likely Republican voters called themselves conservatives--a slightly higher percentage than even South Carolina--and they give Bush an overwhelming lead.

Ohio (69 R, 146 D)

The third biggest prize on Tuesday, Ohio is an open primary state, which could theoretically benefit McCain. However, there is little crossover tradition in Ohio--and Democratic leaders and organized labor are urging the rank-and-file to stick to their own contest that day.

McCain’s best scenario is a strong turnout of Republican-leaning independents. Surveys shows them to be the one group where McCain beats Bush, albeit narrowly. “He needs to find a way to increase their numbers,” says Eric Rademacher, co-director of the University of Cincinnati’s Ohio Poll.

McCain has the support of fellow U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine; but most of the rest of the state party establishment is backing Bush--and working hard to boost his candidacy.

With an MSNBC/Reuters poll released Saturday showing Bush holding a 28-point statewide lead, McCain’s real goal now may be to pick off delegates from individual congressional districts, such as those around Cleveland and Columbus; in the last two weeks, McCain has nearly matched Bush’s television advertising budget in those markets, according to tracking done for The Times by the Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Missouri (35 R, 75 D)

Missouri holds an open primary. But Democrats and Republicans vote on the same day, reducing the likelihood of a big crossover wave that could boost McCain. Even so, the latest polls show this to be the one state outside the Northeast voting on Tuesday where McCain is within range: an MSNBC/Reuters poll released Saturday put Bush’s lead at 12 points. On Thursday night, McCain increased his investment in the state--which awards all its delegates to the statewide winner--by making a late television advertising buy in its three largest markets.

Georgia (54 R, 77 D) Maryland (31 R, 68 D)

McCain once hoped to challenge Bush in Georgia, but many believe his attacks on religious conservative leaders have backfired in a state where more than one-third of GOP voters consider themselves part of that movement. “He’s alienated not only the religious right but a lot of the secular conservatives who understand the religious right is essential to trying to win statewide elections,” said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. The latest surveys show Bush leading by 20 percentage points or more.

McCain’s prospects appeared somewhat brighter in Maryland, a state with a significant block of moderate suburbanites that could favor the senator. Earlier polls showed Bush leading by about 10 points or less, but Saturday’s MSNBC/Reuters survey put the governor’s lead at 23 points.

New England (102 R, 207 D)

With its distinct brand of maverick Republicanism, New England is almost custom-tailored for McCain. “McCain is the ideal candidate: a war hero parading as a moderate,” said Lou DiNatale, a University of Massachusetts political scientist. “It’s a classic [Dwight] Eisenhower profile.”

The Northeast remains the last redoubt of GOP moderation, a place where Christian conservatives are scarce and even many Republicans support gun control and abortion rights. While McCain staunchly opposes both, his support for campaign finance reform and willingness to confront the Republican establishment strike an iconoclastic chord popular here.

Bush’s best hopes may be the states where he has the strongest personal ties. The Bush family has summered for years in Kennebunkport, Maine, and the Texas governor was born in New Haven, Conn. His grandfather, Prescott, was a U.S. senator from Connecticut and an old family network remains extant.

Moreover, “a large part of our [Republican] constituency consists of small-business owners, entrepreneurs, CEOs and people who work in big business in New York and commute,” said Chris DePino, chairman of the Connecticut GOP and a Bush backer. “They look at Bush and say, ‘You know, he’s a good businessman, he’s manager of a large corporation called the state of Texas.’ ”

An MSNBC/Reuters poll released Saturday showed McCain with a 2-point Connecticut lead over Bush.

It’s a fitting symbol of the precarious place McCain finds himself in as Tuesday approaches. For weeks, he has compared himself to Luke Skywalker. But now a more apt role model might be another George Lucas hero: Indiana Jones, who specialized in hair-raising escapes from seemingly certain doom.