PREPARATION

High-Stakes Speech Nothing New For Salter And McCain

In 1996, The Speechwriter Delivered A Last-Minute Hit For The Senator; This Year, They're Back In A Bigger Spot

by Kirk Victor

Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008


Twelve years ago, Bob Dole asked John McCain to give the presidential nominating speech at the San Diego convention. McCain said it would be an honor. There was a catch: The offer came just one day ahead of time.

Off strolled Mark Salter, McCain's closest aide, confidant, and longtime speechwriter, to his hotel room to get down to work. "You could smoke then -- which is good -- and I sat on a little balcony and smoked, and I probably started around noon and had a draft around 5:00," Salter recalled in an interview before this year's convention.

He took the draft to McCain in the adjacent room. "I felt a little pressure, but he liked it. He had sort of told me what he wanted to say," Salter said. "We went and practiced it. The Dole campaign people were happy with it."

That's an understatement. Salter had penned a speech that won rave reviews from critics on the right and the left. "Best speech by far of the convention was Sen. John McCain's," wrote William Safire of the New York Times, who had been President Nixon's speechwriter. "Lesson: Great oratory need not be bombastic."

Liberal columnist Mary McGrory of the Washington Post agreed. McCain "made the best speech.... The Dole team would have served their candidate better with similar simplicity and directness."

Tonight, the 53-year-old Salter, son of a decorated Korean War veteran, hopes to replicate that performance. Clearly the first among equals on McCain's team, Salter practically lives in his mentor's head and recognizes that his needs in a speech go beyond the words to cadence and rhythm.

"Mark has been described by a lot of people as John McCain's alter ego, and I believe that's right," said Charles Black, a senior campaign adviser. "He is closer to him personally than anybody else involved in political circles. He's a walking encyclopedia of John McCain's beliefs, policies, what he said over the last 25 years, the way he likes to say things, what his priorities are."

Still, Salter is beyond self-deprecating. "The idea that it is some heroic effort by speechwriters to write speeches is a flattering myth," he said. "You know what the candidate needs to say, and if you don't the candidate makes sure you do. It comes down to the candidate -- not the writer."

Even so, Salter will probably be on the firing line -- panned or praised for perhaps the most important speech of McCain's life. On Wednesday, Salter holed up with McCain and other senior advisers as the senator rehearsed it. He expects to sit in on more sessions this afternoon as McCain tries to prove wrong the critics who have lampooned his awkwardness at using a TelePrompTer.

Salter, who signed on with McCain in 1989, "had roughed out" a first draft of tonight's speech several weeks ago on the deck of his Maine cottage -- purchased with proceeds from his collaboration with the senator on five best-sellers. (Those royalties topped $230,000 in 2006, according to a Senate financial disclosure report.) Since then, of course, updates have reflected McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate and the havoc of Hurricane Gustav.

Oh -- and then there was Democratic rival Barack Obama's speech last week that rocked a stadium packed with more than 75,000 cheering fans. Salter read it but didn't watch it.

McCain's approach will be quite different, he promised. It won't be so negative. "The guy was throwing some heat," Salter said of Obama. "It ran a little counter to his brand -- he is selling some new politics, and that was pretty old politics."

But he also called Obama a "once-in-a-generation political orator," and added, "There's nothing we can do about that." But Salter was not about to suggest that McCain can't hold his own, as he showed in 1996. "Senator McCain can be a very effective political communicator," he said. "You can find another way to communicate, with sincerity, the authenticity of your candidate and his message. You don't need to be Senator Obama to do that."

"We know what our task is," Salter added. "Both the Obama campaign and the McCain campaign have the same boast, the essential core claim, which is, 'I will change the way we do business in Washington.' There is one guy actually fighting for change in Washington for years, and another guy who has never fought for it. Only one of them has a record of doing it -- at great personal risk to his own ambitions."

McCain is a very good storyteller, and that helps, Salter said. "You have to write the speech like somebody telling a story -- not somebody writing a story."

For all his experience and his insights into McCain, Salter is a constant worrier, said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. "Optimism doesn't come easy to Mark, but he is a true friend who's loyal beyond belief," he said. "He's incredibly talented -- and your classic moody, gifted writer."

He also plays another role, said Dan Schnur, McCain's communications director in his 2000 presidential campaign. "He is a living, breathing, everyday reminder to John McCain as to who John McCain is. Every candidate under these types of pressures is invariably going to face all sorts of pushing and pulling to adapt themselves to the demands of a campaign trail. Every time John McCain looks at Mark, he gets a reminder of who he is and how he got here."

Brian Friel contributed to this story.

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