Reaching out to the blue pockets

How many points do you get for just showing up? John McCain will get an idea when he travels where Republicans...

How many points do you get for just showing up? John McCain will get an idea when he travels where Republicans don8217;t usually campaign. McCain is planning to speak in heavily African-American sections of the South and poor sections of Appalachia. Most of his stops will be in areas where voters have traditionally supported Democrats.

But the McCain tour is not aimed at winning a host of black votes. Nor is it primarily about showing independents that he cares about minorities and the underprivileged. The tour is more like performance art, an attempt to show off authenticity and the unfiltered McCain. He is hoping not so much that the people in the town hall fall for him as that the cameras can convey some of his appeal to independents across the country.

McCain is doing events like this tour out of necessity, too. While the press is focused on the Democratic race, this helps bring McCain attention. The press likes Republicans-doing-unorthodox-things stories, and McCain likes to see himself reflected back as a maverick in their coverage.

The McCain tour also aims to draw a contrast with Barack Obama. The GOP8217;s attack will boil down to the accusation that Obama is a big phony. The Democrat gives them an opening: Obama talks about how he goes in front of hostile audiences, but he doesn8217;t really do it much. He heralds his bipartisan appeal and talent for bringing people together, but his track record is thin. He talks about how his administration will put its negotiations over policy on C-SPAN, but he has run a conventionally conservative campaign, keeping press access low. 8220;Obama talks about doing these things,8221; says a McCain aide, 8220;he just doesn8217;t do them.8221; By reaching out beyond his party ranks, McCain hopes to show that Obama8217;s promises to do the same are empty.

Will any of this work? Only if McCain8217;s effort is sustained. If this tour looks like a stunt, then all the grand claims for it will boomerang. As a candidate who wants to represent all the people he can8217;t keep himself from going before all kinds of people. But all that deep-convictions talk could easily come to look like a sham. McCain doesn8217;t want to go out to prove he8217;s the real thing only to end up looking like another phony.

Excerpted from an article by John Dickerson in Slate, April 9