McCain needs to reaffirm independence

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Republican National Convention first belonged to Gustav and then to Sarah.

Now, it's up to John McCain to make it his own.

The presidential nominee has been almost a forgotten man here this week, overshadowed both by a hurricane and by his selection of Palin as his running mate.

But in his acceptance speech tonight, the Arizona Senator has the chance to start refocusing the campaign back to the choice between himself and Democratic Barack Obama.

For McCain, who has been in the national spotlight for years, it's his chance to show the country how he'd break from an unpopular President Bush.

The tricky part will be separating himself from Bush — who passed the Republican torch to him Tuesday night — without offending the conservative base with whom Bush remains popular. McCain needs to also appeal to independents who don't like the president and could be crucial in a close election. And he needs to reach beyond them to the vast majority who think the country is on the wrong track.

The key: reasserting his credentials as a maverick who's often willing to buck his party while also framing a fall campaign that challenges Obama over who could really change Washington.

For weeks, he has rallied the party's base with calls for increased oil drilling and pledges of fealty on abortion. His selection last week of the Alaska governor as his running mate effectively finished that job, energizing lukewarm conservatives and evangelical voters.

On the stump, McCain has attacked the Illinois Senator relentlessly as too inexperienced to be president. But that argument has faded as Palin's own credentials have been questioned.

Now, McCain has doubled down on the maverick theme, touting his new running mate as an upstart reformer in his own image and casting the ticket as more willing to challenge the way Washington works than Obama and his running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware.

"The ultimate political reality here is that Obama may win as a typical Democrat," said Michael Gerson, who co-wrote both of Bush's convention speeches, in 2000 and 2004. "John McCain has no chance to win as a typical Republican."

In tonight's speech, Jill Hazelbaker, McCain's spokeswoman, said the senator from Arizona will describe for independents and Democrats "how he arrived at his decisions, his history of shaking up the status quo, working across the aisle."

Aides say not to expect anything startling or new; he's offered plenty of that with Palin.

Instead, McCain is likely to talk about his life and his values, which the campaign has tried to capture in a slogan, "Country First."

He'll talk about his independence, his commitment to reform and his willingness to seek bipartisan solutions to problems.

He'll discuss his understanding of the national-security threats facing the nation and how his years of experience have prepared him to protect the nation. He'll draw contrasts with Obama.

Mark Salter, McCain's alter ego and longtime book collaborator, began circulating drafts of the speech to a handful of senior aides eight weeks ago. Since then, McCain has been redrafting it and practicing daily — on the road, in hotel conference rooms, behind a lectern and at his vacation home in Sedona, Ariz., with a teleprompter.

"I think I've got to make a case that I'm ready," McCain told ABC News on Wednesday night, "that I put my country first and it's time to put aside partisan rancor and differences and work together for the country."

Compiled from McClatchy Newspapers, The Washington Post and The Associated Press