Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

What does the Republican Party stand for? Where does it stand? Although "On the Bus: Can John McCain reinvent Republicanism?" by Ryan Lizza goes a ways in answering these critical questions, it is the personality of McCain that emerges most tellingly from the New Yorker piece. And what a refreshing personality it is. Says Lizza:

"It is bracing to drop in on the McCain campaign after covering the overly managed productions of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The Democratic candidates rarely speak to the travelling press. McCain not only packs his bus with reporters (whom he often greets with an affectionate 'Hello, jerks!') but talks until the room is filled with the awkward silence of journalists with no more questions. The Obama campaign, like the Bush White House, prides itself on message discipline and tracks down leakers with a frightening intensity."

Have you noticed that none of these articles ever mention Jimmy McCain? Maybe it's because the candidate doesn't talk about his 20-year-old son now serving with the Marines in Iraq. Time ran a story before Jimmy McCain enlisted in September 2006, even though his father tried to persuade the magazine not to on the grounds that "The boy's under enough in the field as it is." McCain's reticence has been contrasted with the conceit of the Democrat Jim Webb, who won a Senate seat last year after campaigning in his son's old combat boots. Those boots could be contentious later this year, though, if Barack Obama is the Democratic contender and Jim Webb is his vice presidential choice.