An e-mail:

Hi Rich- It’s pretty obvious that McCain’s biography was and is his greatest asset. But what Stu Rothenberg fails to consider in his “play the bio card” recommendation is that biography doesn’t work very well once voters are familiar with and have internalized the biography. Would Clinton’s “Man from Hope” thing have worked if he’d lost in ’92 but made a comeback later? Is Edward’s “son of a mill worker” shtick still a prominent part of his narrative? Assuming Obama is not the nominee this time, would we expect his personal journey to play a major part in future campaigns? No in all cases, for many of the same reasons that Jonathan Rauch’s “14-year-rule” makes sense: the longer a pol is in office, the more his actions in office will cloud out the (often loftier) achievements before he was in office. Oddly, though McCain’s heroism is magnitudes greater than John Kerry’s, Kerry’s still (relatively) fresh military narrative was more of an asset to him in 2004 than McCain’s will be in 2008. I also think Rothenberg neglects to consider how political biography doesn’t shape the political mood, but capitalizes on the then-existing one. For soft-Republicans and independents in 2000, McCain’s “Straight Talk and Honor” campaign was a perfect foil to Clinton’s word-parsing sleaziness. For the political media culture coming out of the epic impeachment saga, McCain was also perfect: he was for “reform,” which every goo-goo reporter knows is good; he could tell a dirty joke (unlike say, Ken Starr), and he also could do it while insinuating that people like Ken Starr are a little nutty. McCain’s bio doesn’t connect at all to the Republican mood in 2008, which I think includes a longing for someone who is a contrast to Bush’s perceived low-gravitas, verbally-challenged, seek-a-legacy-by-insulting-the-base-ism. This could be why we’re in the middle of the Thompson swoon, because people assume (perhaps wrongly) that Fred is a verbal superstar who can project gravitas. And while Bush’s explicit base-insulting has been mercifully sporadic, “I’m not like these crazy Republicans” has been McCain’s brand for seven years. His war hero bio doesn’t match the GOP mood, and his more recent political bio is 180 degrees from the GOP mood. He’s in big trouble.