PHILADELPHIA -- Senator John McCain is the GOP's designated hitter, the biggest stick in the party's batting order when it comes to winning over undecided, unpersuaded, and swing voters.
He swings his lumber lustily when it comes to bashing the Democratic presidential candidate. A thousand times this year he has vowed to ''beat Al Gore like a drum.'' But if McCain's Vietnam-era buddy John Kerry is tapped to fill out the Gore ticket, McCain says he'll rachet down his anti-Democrat rhetoric, out of respect for the Massachusetts senator.
That alone would not be sufficient reason for Gore to move Kerry's name to the top of the short list. But neither is it chopped liver. Short of George W. Bush himself, McCain is the biggest drawing card on the GOP side and the single most influential politician with undecided voters floating around in the middle of the political spectrum.
At a dinner party Sunday for some media types, the Arizona senator breezily acknowledged that his regard for Kerry would override his let-'em-have-both-barrels attack mode. ''I have the utmost respect for John, based on work we did together on the Vietnam-POW issue over the years.'' As decorated Navy officers, one a flier shot down and imprisoned, the other a river assault boat commander assigned to forays on ground and water level, the pair have worked closely across the partisan divide on a number of contentious issues.
And in the political calculus worked out at Gore headquarters in Nashville, Kerry's pluses are adding up impressively. Younger and more telegenic than Dick Cheney, Bush's choice, Kerry is a veteran courtroom prosecutor, a brainy debater who got the best of Bill Weld after nine impressive hour-long TV debates in their heavyweight Senate fight. Kerry can wonk policy, and he can wind-surf, and his boosters make the case he helps in Pennsylvania, the King of Swing States. Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz, was married to the late Senator John Heinz, Republican of Pennsylvania, and the Heinz name and the foundation she heads are popular brands in the Keystone State.
Gore's five-month stint in Vietnam and Kerry's Silver Star combat record make an exploitable counterpoint to the lack of Vietnam service by either Bush (a truncated term as an Air National Guard pilot in Texas) or Cheney (deferments kept him out of the military). Cheney should be Kerry's equal on handling tricky questions about complex issues. But Cheney's spotty health record - three heart attacks and a bypass operation - underscores doubts about his stamina, energy level, and capacity to handle a grueling schedule.
Adding Kerry to his ticket would give Gore a big-city urban Roman Catholic, a demographic nod to 50 million US Catholics, not a few of whom were put off by Bush's clumsy handling of questions about religious intolerance after he made his infamous South Carolina primary appearance at Bob Jones University.
McCain has not forgotten how Bush's campaign savaged the Arizonan there. Nor has ex-New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman, a McCain ally. Both McCain and Rudman got choked up when they formally turned over the McCain delegates to Bush, a ceremony reminding the loyalists of Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Lee kept his sword and his horse, Traveller; McCain gets to keep his Straight Talk Express for perhaps the next war.
McCain plays the good soldier now, saying all the right things about Bush. But there's no love lost between McCain and the Bush clan, even though the Bush Juniors and the McCains will camp out this month at McCain's Arizona hacienda. If Bush stumbles in November, the McCainiacs have their battle bus ready to roll again in 2004.
Some Bush associates speculate privately that Junior chose Cheney because the Wyoming businessman would not ''stand in the way of Jeb Bush'' should the Florida governor try to repeat what his older brother fell short of pulling off. The mood here among Republicans is one of confidence, caution, and control. They think their man will win, if they just don't blow it. The ''iron fist'' convention approach is working.
Nobody's allowed to mention abortion, Monica, impeachment, Newt, Ken Starr, or any other controversial wordset. Opening night was a panoply of artfully calibrated inclusionism, capped by Colin Powell's very effective speech defending affirmative action and needling ''lobbyists who load our federal tax codes with preferences for special interests.'' Even the lobbyists, winking and laughing, enjoyed that one, as they lubricate their way through the GOP with cash and cocktails.
Bill Clinton can jeer about how Bush is trying to ''blur, blur, blur,'' and Hillary Clinton can grump about ''political amnesia.'' But the Bush game plan is working here, at least, and Gore better not blow this vice presidential deal. Maine's ex-Senator George Mitchell would give him another Northeast Catholic with stature to match Cheney's gravitas, and it would not cost the Democrats the Senate seat Kerry would have to forgo if they won. Massachusetts voters view Kerry as Ted Kennedy's junior partner, but Kerry could give Gore some of the pizzazz he lacks now.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
