PHILADELPHIA - Sen. John McCain tested his stump speech for George W. Bush yesterday before a gathering of disaffected voters who in other days might have had nothing but cheers for McCain's outsider message. This time, McCain had to speak over scattered boos and hisses.
Participants at the alternative "Shadow Convention," an eclectic gathering for self-described reformers, jeered when McCain, Bush's former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, expressed his "sincere conviction" that the Texas governor was the right choice for president.
The shouting grew so loud that McCain, who looked startled by the sour turn the event took after opening with huge applause, threatened to walk off the stage.
"If you'd like, I do not need to continue," McCain said in measured tones after a pause, just after offering a salute to Bush for running a positive campaign against Vice President Al Gore. The jeers and shouts continued intermittently, but McCain finished his speech, albeit with a stone face and a swift exit.
The event underscored how uncomfortable McCain's position can be at this Republican convention. He is not quite an insurgent anymore, yet he is not exactly in step with the Republican establishment. And his support of Bush, with whom he clashed in bitter and personal exchanges during the primary, is likely to seem either too loud or too meek, depending on the audience.
The Arizona senator began his Bush promotional tour here with careful words.
"I think it's quite clear that [Bush] is the candidate who offers change, and that the vice president is the candidate of the status quo, and as most people know, I don't care much for the status quo," McCain told the several hundred people at the alternative convention. He and Bush, he added, "agree on many more issues than we disagree on."
To protesters, McCain's message of support for Bush - whom he had accused of dishonest rhetoric during the primaries - seemed to betray his earlier calls for straight talk and an end to cynicism in public life. They further faulted McCain for supporting Bush, who broke corporate fund-raising records early in this race, after the senator had pushed tirelessly for ridding politics of special-interest money.
"He talks about campaign finance reform, but it's money talking in the Republican Party," said Sera Bilezikyan, 22, a New York City activist who plans to demonstrate here this week. "I have trouble believing anything he says at this point."
