McCain’s Other Painful Experience to Come

As John McCain races around the country these last 18 days trying to stem the tide that in just weeks has turned against him while Barack Obama rides a wave, he should take the time to read what Michael Gerson, former Bush speechwriter, has said about him.

Gerson doesn’t like the things other conservatives are saying about McCain, pre-mortems about how he can’t and won’t win. Gerson credits McCain for staying close to Obama in the polls up until the meltdown of the financial markets. “Sometimes a candidate who is down in the polls is not an incompetent but a bystander,” Gerson wrote this week. And he asked, “Did McCain suddenly become a stubling failure? No, the world suddenly went into an economic slide.”

Good for Gerson, but I suspect — as I wrote in my column this week — that there won’t be much more support like his coming from the GOP. For McCain, the coming condemnation from Republicans he has fought with so long will be as painful as losing. It will hurt all the more than losing in 2000 when he walked away his own man. This time McCain took up the cause but he won’t be thanked.

But McCain should remember Gerson’s words, that Obama’s success doesn’t make McCain an imcompetent, and that “maybe he is a great man running at the most difficult of times.”

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Did McCain miss an opportunity when Wall Street crashed? Ask A.B. returns Monday, Oct. 20. Please join my weekly video Q&A by sending your questions and comments to askab@digital-staging.thehill.com. Thank you.