"Bearhug Politics: Careful Steps to a New Bush-McCain Alliance"

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/politics/campaign/
21mccain.html?hp=&pagewanted=all&position=

August 21, 2004

Bearhug Politics: Careful Steps to a New Bush-McCain Alliance

By TODD S. PURDUM

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 - It was one of the odder embraces in American politics since Sammy Davis Jr. hugged Richard M. Nixon at the Republican Convention 32 years ago this summer: George W. Bush and John McCain's back-wrapping bearhug and side-head-smooch on the campaign trail last week.

For most of the past four years, Mr. McCain and the man who beat him for the Republican nomination in a bitter campaign in 2000 have treated each other like a pair of reversed magnets, members of the same metallurgical family held apart by reciprocal repulsion. Now their locked arms are raising eyebrows.

"Don't make people who hate you hug you," Bill Maher joked on the HBO program "Real Time." "Whatever the Bush administration is blackmailing John McCain with, stop!"

<>Four years ago, relations were so strained that Mr. McCain left the Republican convention in Philadelphia two days early, returning for the final night only after a last-minute request by the Bush team. This year, he will have a prime-time speaking slot on the convention's first night in New York City, play host to the network anchors at a private dinner the day before, campaign with the president in several states the day after, speak to 10 or 15 state delegations and preside over a celebrity party with the comedian Darrell Hammond on the eve of Mr. Bush's re-nomination.

So what's up? Pure political physics, friends of both men say.

[Old and In the Way]

1. Looks like McCain is trying to pick George's wallet. nt