June 15, 2007, 0:00 a.m.

Suicide John
McCain collides with the base

By Rich Lowry


Journalists spent months explaining how John McCain’s stalwart support of the Iraq War would sink him in the Republican presidential primaries — and it didn’t. Then, they swooned over Senator McCain’s performance in a New Hampshire debate where he vigorously defended the Senate immigration bill — and his numbers have been falling ever since.

The journalistic interpretations of McCain always lack the crucial context of how living, breathing Republicans — you know, those people you can’t find in many newsrooms — might be reacting to him. And sometimes it seems that the McCain campaign lacks that context as well. In two presidential campaigns now, McCain has proven himself adept at what is becoming his signature maneuver: the suicidal assault directly into the teeth of key Republican interest groups and beliefs.

In 2000, McCain could have scored a monumental upset over then-Texas governor George W. Bush if he had gotten to his right on a few issues — in other words, if he had done more to appeal to Republican voters. Instead, McCain famously alighted to Virginia Beach, Va., to denounce leaders of the Christian Right as “agents of intolerance,â€