Analyst on McCain Iraq Speech, Democratic Ticket

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CHADWICK: First, John McCain, yes, John McCain - the other presidential candidate. He gave a major speech last night. That's what his campaign called it. He was in the city of New Orleans. Here he is.

Senator JOHN MCCAIN (Republican, Arizona): I strongly disagreed with the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq. I called for the change in strategy. I called for the change in strategy that is now, at last, succeeding, where the previous strategy had failed miserably.

(Soundbite of applause)

Senator MCCAIN: I was criticized. I was criticized for doing so by Republicans. I was criticized by Democrats. I was criticized by the press. But I don't answer to them. I answer to you.

(Soundbite of applause)

CHADWICK: John McCain, the candidate of change but the right kind of change, he said last night. Former presidential speechwriter David Frum joins us by phone in Barcelona, where he is today. David, what did you think of that speech?

Mr. DAVID FRUM (Columnist, National Review): Well, the McCain speech as a document was just terrific. It hit every point that John McCain needed to hit. And it did something very subtle. While paying lots of compliments to Barack Obama personally, it dealt with the age issue that Obama subtlety raises against John McCain all the time by complimenting him on his half century of service to the country. John McCain raised it by saying, well, Barack Obama may be young, but his ideas are old.

CHADWICK: I heard him say, it's surprising to hear a young man turn to the past for failed ideas.

Mr. FRUM: Exactly. Now, the only thing that could have made the speech better is if we lived in an age where people absorbed political oratory from the newspaper because when you read the speech, it's just a perfect document. Unfortunately, we've invented radio and television and people hear it and see it, and it was not delivered with the kind of power and conviction that a speech so powerful and conviction-filled ought to have been delivered with.

CHADWICK: So as you look ahead at the campaign, how is that going to play into things? Senator McCain is a - enormously sympathetic political figure for many, many Americans, but as an orator, as someone who has to get up and excite a crowd, he's not a match as a candidate for Senator Obama.

Mr. FRUM: No, but he really doesn't need to be. I mean, I have a very simple map of what I think is happening in this election. The country is ready for a change and is ready to sweep out the incumbent party, the Republicans, if the alternative is acceptable. And the great question over the rest of the election is, is the alternative acceptable? And John McCain is John McCain. He is very much a known quantity.

They know he was right about the war, and they know he got the tactics right. The surge was his idea. They know he is not on top of this economic issue and that's a problem, but he's known, and they respect his integrity and his record. Now you have this other candidate who is much less known and then you have this third force, Hillary Clinton, who I thought last night was sort of vowing to conduct a guerilla warfare campaign - we've lost the main battles, but I'm going to lead my band of party fighters up in to the hills and the war continues. And depending on how destructive she is, she may play a major part in convincing the country that the alternative to the incumbent is unacceptable, or at least impossible.

CHADWICK: You write in the National Review online today that she may be campaigning for the vice presidency and if she is, that Senator Obama would find it almost impossible to say no, but very inadvisable to say yes.

Mr. FRUM: Look, Mitt Romney is campaigning for the vice presidency. He's going around the country. He's making speeches. He's saying nice things about John McCain. Hillary Clinton is doing a little bit more than that. She's got 2,000 delegates or thereabouts. She is delivering a speech - I'm not giving up. Now, the question she is posing to Obama is, nice little convention you are going to have there in Denver, it would be a true misfortune if it were to be ruined by a whole series of challenges over credentials of Michigan and Florida.

I mean, I could turn this thing into the worst convention since the Democratic convention of 1968. Would you like me to do that? If not, you'd better think about ways to make me happy. This is not campaigning for the vice presidency. This is putting a pistol to the man's head and - so, it's not an abstract question for Obama.

CHADWICK: You know, this strikes me, David, we called you to talk about John McCain, and here we are still talking about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Maybe if they go on, Senator McCain will never get any attention and it will just be them.

Mr. FRUM: But this election really is about them. I really do think there is very little the Republicans can do to win this election. But there is a great deal the Democrats can do to lose it and so far, they are doing many of those things.

CHADWICK: David Frum, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and he writes a column for National Review online. David, thank you again.

Mr. FRUM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.