Up, Simba!: 7 Days on the Trail of an Anticandidate Read online

  * THREATENED RETROSPECTIVE FN

  People who followed the GOP race closely may recall that on 28 Feb. John S. McCain gave a speech in which he all of a sudden lashed out at the Christian Right, calling P. Robertson and J. Falwell “agents of intolerance” and comparing several anti-abortion leaders to Louis Farrakhan. McCain’s remarks hit the wire services immediately, of course. And since family-value Christians and Pro-Lifers form the absolute core of the GOP’s Diehard Right Wing, this one speech, delivered the day before the Virginia primary and a week before Super Tuesday, effectively alienated John McCain from half his own party—and the half that always votes. What possible sort of political judgment would lead McCain to do such a thing?

  People who followed the GOP race extra-closely might now also recall reports in late February that some person or persons unknown had apparently gotten P. Robertson, J. Falwell, and several anti-abortion leaders to tape-record certain anti-McCain statements and were now disseminating them via automated phone call to thousands of voters in key primary states. These taped statements were so off-the-charts Negative, so mean and sanctimonious and full of outrageous distortions, that it’s hard to see anyone seriously intending them to sway voters. But then, as any tech could probably tell you, that was never the real intent at all.