Cox is optimistic about McCain
You may not find a more optimistic political type in New York State than Ed Cox, the Manhattan lawyer who is chairman of John McCain’s campaign here.
During a swing through Buffalo last week, the son-in-law of former President Richard Nixon said all the right things about McCain’s New York effort — sweet tones to Republican ears.
“I think New York is in play, and Western New York is crucial,” Cox said over breakfast last week. “Wherever you have Reagan Democrats who are concerned about good jobs and protecting this country, John McCain appeals to them. He’s one of us.”
Still, the sweet tones strike some sour notes. Even the most ardent Republicans don’t expect the Arizona senator to carry the Empire State, which they have not claimed since 1984 and the Ronald Reagan landslide.
And since then, changing demographics have shaded New York an even darker blue.
Indeed, while some McCain organizers were hopeful the senator would launch his “Straight Talk Express” through Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo in conjunction with his July 21 fund-raiser at the Albright- Knox Art Gallery, campaign honchos nixed the idea.
“Why tie up a whole day for a lost cause?” they asked, settling for the substantial sum they hope to collect in the Buffalo-only fund-raising event.
OK, Cox may be a tad over-optimistic. But he offers some thoughtful observations on the race, and why McCain has proven a stock worthy of investment in the past.
Cox, who flirted with the idea of challenging Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2006, points out that nobody of any stature thought McCain had a prayer of winning the Republican presidential nomination just a year ago.
“People were saying he was finished,” he said. “And the campaign was broke.”
McCain supported the “surge” in Iraq, and to some extent, it worked. Some sense of normalcy returned,
even if nobody has yet crafted an exit strategy from a still unpopular war.
But the fact that McCain rebounded despite his support for an unpopular war, Cox said, explains his own surge in the Republican primaries.
“It was all about his own energy and conviction,” he said.
That forms the basis for Cox’s optimism. He says the 2008 election will hinge on national security, based on threats from Islamic extremists that he says remain at the heart of just about everybody’s concerns.
“These issues pulled him off the mat,” Cox said. “He had unique qualifications in that area that neither Democrat had.
“I think the American people understand that,” he added.
The polls do not back up this optimist from Manhattan. There are no plans for Obama to campaign in New York any time soon. He would make those plans if there were a reason.
And it could be that an Iraq war now relegated to inside pages won’t dominate the election after all. Maybe concerns center around gasoline at more than $4 per gallon, soaring food prices and an automobile industry in trouble.
But Cox reasons that even if this Democratic bastion resists McCain, the swing states won’t. Cox recalls how his father-in-law dealt with an unpopular war in Vietnam. The American people trusted him to end it in his own way, he said, and he did.
“Is this an unpopular war? Yes,” he said. “But the question the American people have is: ‘Who is going to manage it to a successful resolution?’ ”
Few share Cox’s optimism about New York at this point. But if McCain somehow rebounds again to where New York is within his grasp, the optimism will be justified. Then, there would be little doubt that he should worry about any other state either.
