f George W. Bush is as smart and savvy and secure as his anxious pals keep assuring us he really is, then his running mate is making a public appearance in Boston today.
Senator John McCain makes a Rocky-like return to the scene of his triumphs in New England, so recent on the calendar, so long ago in political terms. The Arizona Kid who came from nowhere to clobber Dubbaya in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Connecticut signs books today from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Kennedy Library in Dorchester.
King of all New England except Maine, where he lost by a whisker, McCain will lead a sizable contingent of Republican convention delegates to Philadelphia at the end of July. His last appearance hereabouts was a sprightly and well-attended kick-butt rally that filled Copley Square the Saturday before he whupped Bush silly in the March 7 Yankee primaries.
That morning McCain upbraided Bush for gutter campaigning in colluding with a last-minute smear campaign by two Texas pals of Bush who mugged McCain with $2 million in smear ads. McCain demanded that the governor of the Lone Star State ''take that dirty money back to Texas.'' But after getting rolled up in subsequent primaries, McCain did the smart thing, the practical thing, the right thing, and folded his operation, abandoning the fray, but holding onto his delegates in order to take care of his people at the convention.
Like General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, McCain is negotiating terms for his troops as a battlefield commander who has been out-numbered, out-gunned, out-supplied, but not out-fought or out-thought. Bush, for his part, has been slow to accommodate the reality that McCain is still a force to be reckoned with in national politics.
The smartest move Bush could make would be to embrace McCain's personality, accommodate to a reasonable degree with McCain's reformist agenda on money in politics, and make the acknowledged MVP of the primary season his running mate. McCain brings his record as a proven vote-getter, his blow-torch rhetoric against Al Gore, and much more standing on the money-corrupting-politics issue than Bush can sustain on his own.
Would McCain take the No. 2 slot? ''He's said so many times he flat out won't do it,'' said Jean Inman, chairwoman of the McCain campaign in Massachusetts. ''I just don't see him going back on that. He's never even leaned a little toward it in any conversation. I see him sticking to his belief he can serve his country better in the Senate or in some other role.'' Maybe she's right.
But if the party elders work to convince McCain that Bush cannot win without McCain on the ticket, I think McCain would go for it. Why not? McCain would be 67 if he tried to run again in 2004, presuming Bush lost; that's possibly too old. If the offer is phrased as a summons to duty, McCain would have to think hard about it.
It's not like McCain has thumbed his nose at Bush. McCain has said and done all the right things since conceding. His minions have negotiated the convention arrangements with the Bush high command. As a result, Paul Cellucci, our incredible shrinking governor, won't have to wear a page's pass to get in the convention hall. Cellucci keeps getting marginalized every way he turns. But at least he'll be an official delegate, thanks to McCain's camp awarding Cellucci and six of his henchpersons delegate passes, while Inman will lead the remaining 30 Bay State delegates for McCain.
Similar deals were announced Wednesday for Vermont (McCain gives Bush three of the 12 delegates), Rhode Island (McCain gives four of 14 delegates to Bush), and Connecticut (Bush gets 4 of the 25). But like a Confederate officer holding onto his sword, his pistol, and his horse, McCain is setting up Straight Talk America, a political action committee to fund his campaigning for the 40-plus Republican House members and other GOP candidates who recognize his drawing power on the stump.
McCain campaigns tomorrow in Rhode Island for newly appointed Senator Lincoln Chafee and appears also in Connecticut and New York. Come convention time, McCain will roll into Philly from Washington aboard the Straight Talk Express, the symbolic battle bus of the McCain rebellion.
The feisty Arizonan will not be dependent on the kindness of strangers in the Bush machine to get his message. He is not without options. Remaining as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is not chopped liver. And it's theoretically conceivable he might succumb to the temptation of being a Bush Cabinet appointee, say State or Defense. McCain's incredible popularity with military folks, from the GI families on food stamps to the veterans peeved about benefit cuts, would make him a natural for the Pentagon.
But McCain's notorious independence and outspokenness would probably rule him out of consideration for a Cabinet job. I still think the vice presidential nomination is an option. It would give Bush a shot at independents and crossover Democrats who flocked to McCain last winter. And Bush could control a vice president easier than a Cabinet officer. But Bush has yet to demonstrate the subtlety and surefootedness that would be required to entice McCain into accepting the No. 2 job.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
