Campaign Trail

Hearing the issues

• Matthew Price
• 13 Oct 08, 08:35 PM GMT

It is impossible to judge these things perfectly, and I am sure plenty of people have a different take on this rally in Virginia Beach, Virginia, but it seemed a bit lacklustre to me.

The crowd did get geed up, on many occasions. And maybe it's unfair to point out that we watched several dozen people leaving a good 10 minutes before the end of John McCain's speech - since many thousands more stayed.

Surely, though, they came to see him, to hear him. It's not like a football game when your team is losing by a big margin and you stride out in protest or simply to get to the car park before everyone else. Or perhaps that is exactly what it is like?

Those who left though were in the minority, by far.

Before the rally started I spoke to a couple of ladies to get a sense of what they wanted to hear from John McCain.

Bonnie Proutt (who gave me one of her fantastic homemade almond cookies "to keep your sugar levels up") and Carol Rothman are their names.

Carol said she "didn't want to hear" any more negative attacks against Barack Obama: "We want to hear the issues."

Bonnie told me it was all about "policies. I think he's doing a disservice to himself with the negative campaigning," she added.

Others seem to agree.

So fast-forward less than an hour, through country singer Hank Williams Jnr, then Cindy McCain, Sarah Palin, and finally John McCain (who did focus on the issues), and what had Bonnie and Carol thought?

"He's much stronger in person than on television," said Carol.

"Very powerful. The taxes, the economy, the health - he was wonderful," Bonnie said.

OK, they are only two observers, but I do think we sometimes chose to ignore the calm, sober, reflective Americans who simply like John McCain. They have been lost in recent days in a flurry of articles that have focused on the more angry elements of the senator's support base. It's good we hear such voices, of course, but we shouldn't forget those like Bonnie and Carol.

And they might have had a point, these two ladies who I guess are in their late 50s.

If McCain can focus on the issues he might claw back some ground. With the economy so bad, the noise it's generating is drowning out everything else - it has to be his narrative too.

That said, the McCain campaign - if it can re-focus on the economy now - may have (as far as it is concerned) played a blinder.

The last few days of negative campaigning have pushed a slew of rumours and innuendo about Barack Obama into many voters' minds.

One man I met on the way into the rally told me Obama "is friends with terrorists." Do you actually believe that, I asked? "Absolutely," he replied.

And then there was Hank Williams Jnr who performed on stage before and after the speeches.

One song, was about McCain and Palin, and he sang: "They don't have terror friends to whom their career is linked."

McCain can focus on the economy, if last week has got enough of his supporters continuing the negative campaigning themselves - with or without his blessing.

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Palin's cheer

• Matthew Price
• 13 Oct 08, 03:18 PM GMT

Who's running? The rally here at Virginia Beach is just starting, and Thelma Drake - the Republican Congresswoman for Virginia's 2nd district - has announced who'll be on stage in a bit.

John McCain got a good cheer. Then there was a slightly longer one for Hank Williams Jnr who'll be on stage shortly.

"And of course," (pause for dramatic effect) "the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin."

The cheer was twice as long as either of the past two.

Now Thelma Drake has just said: "Sarah Palin is a breath of fresh air." The crowd love it.

Oh, and on that subject of how many will wear red? It's about half of the crowd. Which we're estimating at around 25,000 - but I'm useless at working out crowd sizes!

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Keeping Virginia red

• Matthew Price
• 13 Oct 08, 03:50 AM GMT

VIRGINIA BEACH: If there's anywhere you would have assumed John McCain would do well it's Virginia Beach.

This is home to the biggest naval yard in the world, so there will be hearty support for the former navy aviator here.

Not that everyone in the military supports him of course - at the Democratic convention I interviewed one former US Navy rear admiral campaigning for Obama.

But many in the military do see John McCain as their man.

Even in Virginia Beach though, there are concerns about Senator McCain's campaign. The state's Republican leadership is worried that he's not getting his message across.

This is a little old but gets the message across.

The polls suggest an Obama victory here - in a state that last voted a Democrat for president way back in 1964.

If McCain can't win here, he's not going to win the White House.

On Monday he turns up at the convention centre, just outside my hotel window, to try and persuade the faithful and not so faithful.

It might be easier here than in northern Virginia where population changes over the years have brought in a more Democratic-leaning crowd.

He needs their support here though.

One measure of that might be whether there's a good response to this message on the campaign's Virginia website, asking people to turn up at the rally: "Show your support by wearing RED to remind everyone to keep Virginia Red this November!"

I'll get back to you on how many are wearing Republican red in a few hours.

In the meantime, McCain has to work out how he runs the rest of his campaign.

Does he continue the (some say racist) attacks on Barack Obama's character that have characterized the last week or so in an attempt - as one advisor put it - to shift the focus off the economy?

If he does, he risks further angering the growing voices who - like that veteran of the civil rights movement, John Lewis - accuse him of "sowing hatred".

McCain has never struck me as someone particularly happy with such a style of politics. Remember Karl Rove's smears about him during the 2000 primary contest against George W Bush?

The dilemma McCain faces of course, as his poll numbers slide, is whether such attacks - awkward as he might feel about them - might be his best chance of winning this election?

As one colleague put it to me, this is McCain's dilemma, it is "the battle for his soul".

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