Edwards and McCain Try to Stay Relevant

There aren't many good parallels between the Democratic and Republican fields this year. Each race is playing out much differently, leading each party's candidates to conduct their campaigns much differently. But for the non-frontrunners, there are only so many ways to reach the top. Another way of saying it, there are only so many ways for John Edwards and John McCain to remain relevant.

Both Edwards' and McCain's campaigns are disappointments. Excluding perennial vanity candidates like Dennis Kucinich, Edwards and McCain are the only realistic candidates with past presidential primary experience, and yet neither has performed well. Certainly Edwards, who began running almost the day John Kerry conceded, hasn't seen much benefit from years of preparation that included a working Iowa operation long before many of the other candidates jumped in. Meanwhile, McCain spent a good deal of the Bush years trying to be a loyal Republican -- backing the president solidly in 2004 and on immigration, for instance -- with very little goodwill from the conservative movement to show for it.

But Edwards ran into trouble early on. Although an angrier version of his 2004 self, Edwards at first tried to update his "two Americas" schtick into an RFK-inspired populist campaign, most noticeably during his summer "poverty tour." When that wasn't working, Edwards allowed his anger to run wild and began talking conspiratorially about a "they" who were trying to "silence" him. That didn't much work either.

For McCain, the early strategy was simple, if dangerously flawed. Assuming the frontrunner mantle, McCain hoped to outspend his opponents in a Bush-style campaign of sheer force, reaching for the "aura of inevitability." But of course McCain was never a true frontrunner, as he should have realized the minute Rudy Giuliani passed him in the polls. Not until the campaign had bottomed out in the summer did McCain change his thinking. Indeed, only when McCain sought to "own" the surge in September, and embarked on his "No Surrender" tour to coincide with Gen. David Petraeus' testimony to Congress, did voters respond approvingly. Still, it's a wonder McCain has made it to November at all.

Yet here both are, Edwards and McCain, with just enough money and determination to make it to January. Now suddenly each candidate's goal is very similar, if still unlikely: Take down the closest rival.

For Edwards, that's Obama. At the Oct. 30 debate in Philadelphia, the buzz was all about whether Obama was going to go after Clinton. When he hesitated in the opening minutes, he yielded the opportunity to Edwards, who, for all his "two Americas" rhetoric, is a brawler of a politician.

It was Edwards, after all, who, following Clinton's brutal response to the driver's licenses for illegals question, said, "Unless I missed something, Senator Clinton said two different things in the course of about two minutes." Since the debate, it has been Edwards who has sought to capitalize the most on Clinton's gaffe, releasing Web videos and giving interviews poking fun at Clinton's "politics of parsing." Obama has also taken his shots, but with no where near the ferocity of Edwards.

It might look as if Edwards is trying to take down Clinton, but that's unrealistic at this point. What Edwards is doing is showing the "Anyone But Hillary" Democrats that he, not Obama, has the courage to take on the Clintons. It's a direct assault on Obama made all the better because Edwards never has to mention Obama.

McCain is operating at a different level. The Democratic field is very linear, with the top three candidates in the same ranking in nearly every primary state. The GOP field is mess, and so concentrating on any one candidate will necessarily leave another rival free. Where McCain is focused -- on New Hampshire and South Carolina -- Romney has slim leads. But Romney isn't -- or shouldn't be -- McCain's target. It should be Fred Thompson.

Why Thompson and not, say, Mike Huckabee or Rudy Giuliani? Because at this point the void in the race that Thompson was supposed to fill and many had already figured McCain couldn't fill -- consensus, fusionism-type conservatives -- is still open.

As Thompson's national poll numbers show, his decline is likely the result of these voters, who had hoped Thompson could fill the void, still looking around. They probably can't abide Giuliani's social liberalism; they probably don't trust Romney; and Huckabee is still too new (and some suggest too "compassionate"). McCain needs to capture them.

One way he could do so is to go after Thompson on social issues like abortion. As Bob Novak brought up in his column the other day, Thompson has "revealed an astounding lack of sensitivity about the abortion issue" for pro-life voters hoping he would shine. If McCain can knock Thompson down a few more notches, he might be able to set himself up as the alternative to Rudy and Mitt.

Edwards and McCain: Two very different candidates who share the same problem of trying to stay in the game.