MCCAIN AND RED MEAT

A conservative radio commentator is claiming that likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain “threw me under a bus” after the commentator, Bill Cunningham, opened a rally for the candidate with some pointed barbs at the Democratic candidates. Sen. McCain denounced the commentator for the shots he took at Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, causing Mr. Cunningham to in turn renounce his support for the Republican candidate. The incident is admittedly an odd turn of events. At the risk of reading too much into it, it may reveal more about Sen. McCain the candidate and the possible president.

The commentator, told by organizers to whip up the crowd in anticipation of Sen. McCain’s appearance, repeatedly referred to Sen. Obama as “Barack Hussein Obama,” and called him a “hack, Chicago-style Daley politician.” Sen. Obama’s middle name is indeed Hussein, but Mr. Cunningham clearly was trying to smear the Democrat by associating him with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It’s a juvenile tactic that has been employed by countless talk radio hosts. But Sen. McCain (for the record, John Sidney McCain III) took particular exception to Mr. Cunningham’s derisive tone directed at a fellow U.S. senator, and rightly so.

It’s not the first time Sen. McCain has defended a fellow senator. During the 2004 Republican National Convention, delegates wore purple adhesive strips on their faces and arms to mock Sen. John Kerry’s receiving Purple Hearts during the Vietnam War, which they claimed he did not earn. Immediately after addressing the convention, Sen. McCain was asked by television news anchors about the delegates’ behavior, and he unequivocally denounced it as dishonoring and shameful.

The recent flap over the radio commentator suggests that Sen. McCain should have a stronger campaign organization in place. Mr. Cunningham claimed local organizers urged him to pull out the stops in his appearance. “They told me to fire up the crowd … get them fired up and give them some red meat,” he told CNN. If Sen. McCain does not want that sort of introduction, he should run a tighter campaign ship.

But the candidate’s response also speaks well of how he might govern as president. Just as Sen. Obama has pledged to change the tone in Washington to create a more collegial atmosphere in which problems can be solved, Sen. McCain’s actions speak just as loudly – or perhaps louder – than the Democrat’s.