Opinion: McCain launches his general campaign with risky style he likes

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Perhaps being shot down over enemy territory, fished out of a lake with two broken arms and a broken knee, and incarcerated for nearly six years as a prisoner of war makes Sen. John McCain less intimidated than other politicians at the thought of speaking to unfriendly audiences.

After all, what’s a little heckling after you’ve endured years of North Vietnamese imprisonment and torture?

That thought came to mind last week as McCain spoke in Memphis to an African-American crowd gathered outside the Lorraine Motel, the site of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr’.s 1968 assassination.

The venue was certainly well beyond the typical suburban comfort zone of many presidential candidates especially Republicans. And especially for Republicans named McCain who voted against the....

federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, a historic fact that drew boos from some in the audience. It was McCain who brought the subject up -- and apologized.

And as John Dickerson of Slate writes, it’s part of a McCain campaign strategy that will find him visiting inner-city and poor rural areas, places Republicans usually write off as too Democratic to waste precious campaign time in.

As Dickerson writes:

‘The McCain tour is not aimed at winning a host of black votes. Nor is it primarily about the next obvious play: showing independents that he cares about minorities and the underprivileged, a traditional bank shot candidates take in order to make themselves appealing to moderate voters.

The tour, which will include lots of freewheeling town halls, is more like performance art, an attempt to show off authenticity and the unfiltered McCain.

‘People can come in and do what they want,’ says McCain’s top advisor and frequent book co-author, Mark Salter. ‘They can praise, chastise, and argue with him. This isn’t just his style. It’s a part of his message.’

McCain’s strategists are mapping the tour — and his campaign — on the theory that even if voters disagree with McCain, they come away with a favorable gut-level sense of his character when they get to see him up close.

This is what the McCain camp believes helped him win New Hampshire in 2000 and what they think sparked his comeback in this winter’s elections. With this tour, McCain is hoping not so much that the people in the hall fall for him as that the cameras capturing the event can convey some of his appeal to independents across the country.

McCain is doing events like this tour out of necessity, too. While the press is focused on the Democratic race, this helps bring McCain attention. The press likes Republicans-doing-unorthodox-things stories, and McCain likes to see himself reflected back as a maverick in their coverage.

The tour also appeals to McCain’s strong suit. He’s no good in the usual campaign setting. He sounds stilted and unemotional behind a podium. In a town hall, he speaks more directly. His better qualities are more likely to come out in a high-risk setting, where he exchanges views with sometimes hostile voters, than in the deadening policy speech told before the beaming faces of GOP stalwarts.

That all makes sense. McCain has been really flat and has almost seemed sedated during his big policy speeches. The fewer of those speeches he has to give, the better.

By contrast, two qualities McCain’s campaign will be able to highlight by having McCain pop up before audiences of black, brown and low-income people is their candidate’s courage and penchant for risk-taking.

It unquestionably takes courage to face a hostile audience which will contain some members intent on either embarrassing or discomfiting a Republican presidential candidate.

But it also allows McCain to show himself as willing to roll the dice. Risk-taking is generally not something one associates with septuagenerians. It’s an indication that, even at his age, McCain is willing to take chances and act with a boldness usually more associated with more youthful men.

In this respect, McCain appears to be acting like the younger candidate while Democratic Sen. Barack Obama campaigns for his party’s nomination with a caution that one would expect from the older candidate.

Dickerson makes the point a little differently -- that the McCain campaign wants to contrast Obama’s words with the Arizona senator’s deeds, that while Obama talks about conducting a different kind of politics, McCain is actually doing it.

We’ll see. The road show is already underway.

--Frank James

Frank James writes for the Swamp of the Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau.

Photos courtesy of office of Sen. John McCain.