Front Row: Voters seek change but experience wins

by William E. Gibson

Voters along the campaign trail constantly tell me they want to change the ways of Washington and pick a president who can alter the direction of the country.

So why is 71-year-old veteran Senator John McCain headed toward the Republican nomination? And why is Senator Hillary Clinton, who carries heavy baggage from the partisan wars of the ‘90s, taking the lead for the Democratic nomination?

It seems that voters are buying the logic that experience counts and that candidates who know Washington are best able to change it.

The Democratic race is far from decided. Barack Obama, 46, who is running only slightly behind Clinton in the delegate count, embodies the kind of sweeping change many voters say they want. On the Republican side, McCain still faces a determined challenge from Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, who are campaigning against the Washington establishment.

But the most likely matchup appears to be a couple of well-known polarizing figures from the past.

McCain especially seems to defy all conventional wisdom.

He is the old man in a year when voters value youthful vigor. He is the national-security candidate after the 9/11 battle cries have faded. He is the enthusiastic steward of an unpopular war in Iraq. He was never known for economic expertise, yet wins primaries when voters have put the economy at the top of the public agenda.

McCain also proves that money in politics does not necessarily lead to votes. His campaign had descended into debt just before his impressive victories in South Carolina and Florida made him the Republican front-runner.

The big winner of the money chase in Florida was Rudy Giuliani. The former mayor collected more than any other candidate in the state during the last quarter of 2007 – about $1.5 million – yet he finished a distant third in the primary and dropped out of the race.

Among Republicans, McCain raised the least in Florida during that period: $523,583. Even long shots Mick Huckabee and Ron Paul raised more.

McCain won anyway in Florida and most of the Super Tuesday states. He did it with ``free media,’’ meaning lots of news coverage from his early primary wins. He did it by building a public image over many years of being a genuine war hero, a straight-talker with a reformist agenda.

He convinced Republicans that he stood the best chance of winning the general election. And he drew independent voters -- in the states that hold open primaries -- who value his attempts to change the political culture of Washington, which he likes to call ``the city of Satan.’’ Satanic or not, Washington is likely to be shaken up by a McCain presidency, and that’s what voters want.

His Senate colleague Clinton represents a different form of change, historic and profound. Many voters, especially older ones, say they are excited about the prospect of having a woman president. A few were born before women had the right to vote. Now women make up a clear majority of Democratic primary voters and a slight majority of the electorate in key states.

``We really don’t have equality,’’ said Eugenia Raughley, a 90-year-old retired social worker, told me before voting for Clinton in Boca Raton, Florida, last week. ``I worked the same job as a gentleman, and he made more than I did. I was a much better worker as well. And I haven’t forgotten that. The mere fact that she would be president would be great progress for us.’’

So if change is gonna come, it likely will be at the hands of a couple of experienced figures from the 20th century. Unless Romney or Obama wrestle away the nominations, we are headed for a contest with parallels to the 1996 campaign between Bill Clinton and Bob Dole.

Big Bill rhetorically dragged us across a ``bridge to the 21st century’’ about a million times that year, a subliminal reminder that he was relatively young and Dole visibly aging. McCain, the former prisoner of war in Vietnam, will likely take the place of Dole, a wounded hero of World War II.

Republicans will hope for a different result. Either way, you can be sure that if the former first lady and the maverick reformer are the nominees, they will compete to be the candidate who best represents change.

William E. Gibson, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Washington bureau chief for 25 years, has covered six presidential elections and 13 sessions of Congress. He focuses on national news and politics of special interest to Florida, the nation's largest electoral swing state. Before coming to Washington, he covered Miami for the Sun-Sentinel. He has also worked at the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, N.Y., and The Albuquerque Tribune in New Mexico.