MIAMI – A high-spirited Rick Davis late Sunday night made perhaps his final case for John McCain, arguing that the unusual number of still-remaining undecided voters could tip the election to the GOP and that whether those holdouts ultimately vote could prove decisive.
“If Barack Obama hasn’t closed the deal with them after two years in the campaign and a year as the nominee of their party, maybe they’re holding out for a good reason,” Davis told reporters en route to an after-midnight campaign rally here. “Now, maybe they just decided not to vote and they don’t want to say that because everyone they know is voting. So we’ll see. If we see the vote drop below 130 million, you’ll know they didn’t show up. If it goes over you’ll know they came out, [and] I think that’s a good chance for us to win.”
A final round of eight battleground state polls released Sunday by Mason-Dixon showed that between four and nine percent of voters in each state remained on the fence.
Despite every national poll and many key state survey showing McCain behind, Davis sought to put the best face on their underdog position.
“You know what the path is,” he said. “It’s a combo of the 14 states that are in play to get to 270 [electoral votes]. We’ll take them in any combination we can get them.”
Though public polls show McCain down in all three contested western states, Davis said the states were tilting their way and could make their task easier.
“If we can win Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, all of the sudden we’ve got a whole new pathway to victory.”
Davis also singled out three other hotly-contested states, where Obama is also leading in public polls, to argue that McCain could win if he reduced the Democrat’s advantage in urban and suburban Democratic strongholds: Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
“We’re going down there tonight to cut into his margins,” Davis said of the late-night rally on the campus of the University of Miami.
Of Virginia, which McCain only visited once before October, Davis noted Obama’s strength in the commonwealth’s Washington suburbs, conceding that it has “been a very stubborn state for us.”
As for Pennsylvania, Davis said they could win – if Obama didn’t rack up historic numbers in the city of Philadelphia.
“If you can figure out what I’m going to lose [Philadelphia] by, you’ll know if I can win Pennsylvania.”
But even as he sought to explain how McCain could pull off an upset and cracked wise with a press corps he made no attempt to hide his unhappiness with, Davis also offered a hint of a valedictory, citing the massive Democratic advantages this year in arguing that the resilient 72-year-old Arizona senator had already defied expectations in a difficult year for the GOP.
“It’s been a hard campaign,” he acknowledged. “It’s just a tough environment. And we’re not playing on a level playing field. One candidate’s got clean uniforms, a lot of training and all the money in the world. I feel like I’m the Tampa Bay Rays playing against the New York Yankees. I mean, I know it’s hard for them, but you know we’re still in the hunt. And we may be going to extra innings here, who knows.”
It was a moment as candid as it was rare and wholly unexpected. Outside of television interviews and campaign conference calls, Davis rarely talks to reporters. But in a relaxed, 45-minute conversation in the rear press compartment of McCain’s campaign jet, the campaign manager gripped a can of Bud Light and talked at length about nearly every element of what has been a grueling, two-year-long roller coaster ride.
“No one thought we could win a nomination, we won a nomination,” Davis said, standing in the aisle, his tie loosened for the long flight from New Hampshire to south Florida. “No one thought we could be competitive with Barack Obama, and we’ve been competitive with Barack Obama. You know, no one thought a Republican could win in this environment and we got a shot at it.”
As for what may have been the most damaging portion of the campaign, Davis offered no regrets for McCain’s decision to suspend his candidacy when the financial crisis hit in September. But he was frank about the impact of the crash and McCain’s response.
“The politics played out poorly for us,” Davis said, adding that he thought the candidate “did the right thing.”
He described a sobering moment the day McCain decided to return to Washington, casting the move as understandable given the severity of the crisis.
“We were literally in a meeting in New York with our…economic team, some of the smartest minds in international finance telling you that, you know, you gotta go to Washington to avert a global finance collapse that’ll cause us all to go into the dark ages financially. Ok, that’s serious stuff, you know.”
There was no changing McCain’s mind once he decided to upend the campaign, Davis assured with a knowing chuckle, bringing up the senator’s unwavering commitment to the war in Iraq.
“No, no there’s usually not a debate around John when he makes those decision, like you know [when he decided] we’re gonna talk about the surge.”
Asked what the campaign had done well and not done well, Davis offered perhaps his most unvarnished view of the night, turning around the question on those holding the red-lit microphones in his face.
“The big hole we have I think is…our earned media coverage,” he said, referring to the campaign’s treatment in the press. “I don’t know what we could have done to do it differently, but it sucks. So I look back at that and say wow.”
Despite his jabs, Davis was largely in good cheer, laughing and bantering with a small group of reporters and occasionally making light of question.
Pressed for details on McCain’s election day travel – he’s slated to leave Arizona and hit Colorado and New Mexico while the polls are open – Davis joked:“We may not go back [to Arizona].
“We’ll just campaign all the way through. We’ll take you to Oregon. It’s been closing. Go Ducks, baby.”
