A few weeks ago I went to South Carolina to get a firsthand look at the presidential prospects of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

To say the state will be crucial for McCain’s still-unannounced 2008 campaign is an understatement.

First of all, winning the first primary in the South will be important for any Republican candidate. But it’s especially important for McCain, given that his 2000 campaign suffered a fatal blow in South Carolina — a blow delivered jointly by George W. Bush and McCain himself.

Now McCain is back in the state, giving Republicans a new look at the guy who lost six years ago.

At least so far, he’s looking pretty good.

McCain traveled to Columbia in late June to attend a small fundraiser for GOP candidates facing statewide elections this November. The first thing he talked about was federal spending.  

“I’m gonna give you some straight talk,” he said. “We’ve got to stop this spending and get it under control, or our base will not turn out next November. And that’s a fact of life.”

You won’t find any disagreement with that in South Carolina. Republican voters are hungry for a candidate who actually cares about controlling federal spending.

They won’t say it exactly that way — they’re not inclined to criticize George W. Bush openly — but it’s clear they want a new direction on fiscal responsibility. And McCain, who voted against the infamous highway bill and the enormously expensive Medicare prescription-drug entitlement, is saying what they want to hear.

The same goes for Iraq. In South Carolina, McCain told the crowd the U.S. simply has to win.

“Don’t get too high when we send Zarqawi to the special place in Hell that’s been reserved for him,” McCain said, “and don’t get too depressed when you hear of some attacks that have inflicted casualties.”

When McCain says things like that, he’s drawing on a lifetime of credibility on military issues and national security. No other GOP candidate — or Democratic one, for that matter — can do that.

And when McCain speaks to crowds like the one in South Carolina, he doesn’t give himself any wiggle room, any easy out. We’re in, he says. We’ve got to win. We can’t leave until we do.

Several months ago, his top political adviser, John Weaver, told me, “If John McCain and George W. Bush are the last two men standing advocating the exportation of democracy and the protection of democracy in Iraq, so be it.”

If the race in South Carolina were determined solely on the issues of national defense and federal spending, McCain would be a huge favorite. But, for all his strengths on those issues, there’s still a lot of ambivalence about McCain.

Voters in South Carolina remember the guy who attacked Bush by saying he “twists the truth like Clinton” and who told crowds, “I say to independents, Democrats, Libertarians, vegetarians, come on over.” Those weren’t exactly winning lines for a Republican.

At the moment, though, McCain’s biggest problem is immigration.

When you’re running for the GOP presidential nomination in the South Carolina primary, it doesn’t help to have your name closely associated with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). And yet, there is McCain, his name alongside Kennedy’s on the Senate immigration bill.

During a pre-fundraiser meeting with big donors in Columbia, one businessman told McCain, “There’s one word that’s killing us, and it’s ‘amnesty.’”

While McCain stresses the enforcement provisions in his bill, he hasn’t been able to escape the A-word, and it could hurt him. Perhaps the best thing about the issue is that it might not be a matter of burning concern come primary time in early 2008.

McCain also has problems with some social issues. He has a strong anti-abortion voting record, but he recently voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, saying he thinks that’s an issue for the states to decide. On the other hand, he’s a big supporter of a ballot measure in Arizona defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman, so that issue might be a wash.

If you put it all together, the man who lost the 2000 South Carolina primary is in a solid position for the 2008 race.

In March, McCain’s top political consultant in the state took a poll of Republicans and found McCain leading with 36 percent, followed by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani with 21 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) with 9 percent, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) with 4 percent, Virginia Sen. George Allen with 3 percent, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with less then 1 percent, and 27 percent undecided.

Those are good numbers if you’re John McCain. And in South Carolina he has one more thing going for him. Republican voters have a tradition of nominating the next guy in line — like Bob Dole in 1996.

Voters seem to view McCain as that guy for 2008. He ran hard in 2000, he lost, he worked hard and he’s back.

Now it’s his turn.

York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it