Justin Webb's America

Coffee and McCain

• Justin Webb
• 2 Feb 08, 11:54 PM GMT

NASHVILLE: A couple of important coffee points before moving on to Nashville, where I am now: John Kecsmar and others might be interested to see that McDonalds is about to start serving espresso. I think this could be a response to my encouragement.

And Greta, I am wounded by the English cuisine line: London is now (really) a culinary centre of the world, though you need to be as rich as Mitt Romney (before the campaign) to enjoy it. As for smelling Obama's brew - well I do, of course, and his advisor on Europe, Phil Gordon of Brookings, is a good friend of mine. But the man sounded pompous to me as I drove through Ohio in the middle of the night: he just did.

Emmanuel, I promise I have no hidden agenda: in fact my repetition on British airwaves of the old (but effective) slur that Hillary tends to remind men of their first wives got me into no end of trouble. As for Justin's point about the dream ticket: as a journalist it'd be mine as well. But I agree she might consider it; he will not: why would he?

And so to John McCain, whose event in Nashville was small, cheerful and military in tone. The candidate begins his speech now with the economy (even straight talkers with no pollsters can read the front pages) but he gets into his stride when talking about terrorism and military honour. At the end, I asked him whether a McCain foreign policy would differ much from Bush. "Yes" is the answer - and the difference will be America coming in from the cold on climate change. In the UK and Europe, that would be a huge deal.

For a partisan look in more detail at the same event I was at, go to a local blogger who attended the whole thing. I must say, the McCain effort is still looking wonderfully low key and amateur (I mean that in a good way) - the message is muscular but homespun. Afterwards I talked to former Fred Thompson backers who want McCain now: is the Republican party (apart from the cable news barmy crowd) finally doing what it is good at: gathering round a frontrunner?

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