McCain Used POW Past Heavily In First Election
PHOENIX — A newcomer to Arizona, John McCain used his wife's wealth, ties to powerful Washington figures and, most of all, the emotional power of his five years in a Vietnamese prison to launch his political career 25 years ago.
Well-known today, McCain's harrowing experience during the Vietnam War was new to voters in his 1982 race for an open congressional seat. McCain saturated local TV with an ad focused on his military record that showed him getting off a plane on crutches shortly after his release as a POW.
"It showed he was a hero. It would bring tears to your eyes," said rival candidate Ray Russell, a veterinarian who finished second in the Republican primary that year.
In his 2002 book "Worth the Fighting For," McCain himself acknowledged his strategy: "Thanks to my prisoner of war experience, I had, as they say in politics, a good first story to sell."
The 1982 race to replace retiring Rep. John Rhodes launched McCain's political career. It cemented his reputation as a tireless campaigner and set the stage for things that would come back to haunt him, including his troubled relations with GOP conservatives and his ties to Charles Keating, a savings and loan financier later convicted of securities fraud.
Although he had moved to Arizona less than a year before announcing his candidacy, McCain overpowered Russell and two GOP state lawmakers in the primary and then trounced his Democratic opponent in what was then the state's most Republican congressional district. His 6-point edge in the four-way primary was the smallest victory margin of his career in Congress.
Jay Smith, a consultant who handled McCain's advertising in 1982, said McCain demonstrated his drive to succeed and his refusal to quit when others felt he didn't have a chance. "That was as true in 1982 as it was last summer" when he shook up his faltering presidential campaign, Smith said.
When he left the Navy in 1981, McCain moved to Arizona, home to his wife's family, intent on running for Congress.
While waiting for a congressional seat to open, he worked as a public relations executive at his father-in-law's beer distributorship, made the rounds on the local Rotary Club circuit and wrote guest newspaper columns, including one advocating the return of the military draft to match growing Soviet armed forces.
When Rhodes announced he wouldn't seek re-election, McCain and his wife, Cindy, quickly bought a house in the mostly middle-class suburban district encompassing Mesa, Chandler, Tempe and parts of Phoenix and Scottsdale.
McCain's move to Arizona and then to Rhodes' district led some old-guard Republicans to accuse McCain of being a political opportunist.
Although he began as last among the four GOP primary candidates, McCain later would write, "I knew I had a pretty good shot at it." He based his confidence on his war experience, "my connections to national political figures, including the Reagans, the money I believed I could raise, much of which Cindy and I would lend the campaign," and his new Arizona friends.
McCain knocked on 15,000 doors in Arizona's convection-oven summer heat, sent mailers and ran TV and radio ads. In addition to the personal loans, people close to the Reagans contributed or showed up for his fundraisers.
Smith said McCain sold himself to voters on his knowledge of Washington politics, his experience as Navy liaison to the Senate and his ties to power politicians.
News accounts from the time show McCain focused on foreign policy, advocating a strong U.S. role in the Middle East as long as America was dependent on foreign oil. He railed against waste in defense budgets and said Arizona's priorities included getting money for a canal to bring water from the Colorado River to the Phoenix and Tucson areas.
Two months before primary day, McCain said Donna Carlson, one of the two state lawmakers who were the early front-runners, was misinformed on foreign policy. Carlson responded that McCain focused on foreign affairs because he wasn't well acquainted with Arizona's priorities.
Shortly before primary day, the other candidates disputed McCain's claim to credit for landing a defense contract to build helicopters in Mesa. Russell, the veterinarian, said Sen. Barry Goldwater, out of the country at the time, sent a telegram to McCain's opponents saying he was responsible for the contract.
One of McCain's Washington friends, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Tower, R-Texas, stepped in to support McCain. Smith, the McCain consultant, said McCain had lobbied in Congress for the contract as Navy liaison and never took exclusive credit for the deal.
McCain struggled with the carpetbagger label at first but, finally, at a Republican district meeting, delivered a stronger response, which he recalled this way in his book:
"I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the first district of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi."
Some of McCain's longer term political problems initially took root in that 1982 campaign.
In this period, McCain met Keating, a real estate developer who was later convicted of securities fraud after a thrift institution he owned failed during the savings and loan crisis. Keating and associates raised about $110,000 for McCain's first three campaigns.
After he was elected to the Senate, McCain and four other senators were accused of trying to intimidate regulators on behalf of Keating. A congressional ethics investigation concluded McCain had used poor judgment.
McCain's uneasy relationship with Arizona conservatives also began during his first race, said Bruce Merrill, an Arizona State University professor who did McCain's polling in 1982. Merrill said they didn't believe McCain was a true conservative: "He had that in Arizona since day one."
McCain is still struggling to win over Republican conservatives, but now his effort is nationwide.
And two of his original 1982 GOP opponents remain divided over him to this day.
Carlson, who finished last in that Republican primary, doesn't plan to vote for McCain in November because she feels he has focused too much on the war in Iraq and hasn't offered concrete answers to the country's problems.
Russell, runner-up in the primary, says he will vote for McCain because the senator has represented Arizona well and because his military and foreign affairs experience will make him a strong commander in chief.
"He is a good man," Russell said. "I believe he is much better now than he was then."
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JACQUES BILLEAUD | August 3, 2008 12:58 PM EST |
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