Starting Gate: McCain's First Test

The New York Times dropped its long-rumored bombshell story alleging that a past relationship with a female lobbyist so worried advisers of his 2000 presidential campaign that they engineered an intervention of sorts to put an end to it.

The implications could not be more clearly stated in the second paragraph of the story: "Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself – instructing staff members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him."

The story also suggests McCain may have done favors for the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman: "A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for … one of Ms. Iseman's clients."

The story includes denials from both McCain and Iseman about the suggested romantic relationship and the campaign released a statement calling the story a "hit and run smear campaign."

Politically speaking, the story is threatening to McCain on two fronts. First, with the nomination not yet completely in the grasp, it threatens to spark more concerns among a party he is trying to unite for the fall campaign. The reaction of those conservative agitators who have opposed McCain in the primary campaign will be telling to how harmful even the vague allegations raised by this story to his attempts at consolidating the GOP. There could be a "told-you-so" reaction but the fact this story is being leveled by a news organization that has been a longtime whipping post for conservatives may help McCain.

Possibly more harmful in the long run is any denting of McCain's image as a crusader against special interests and the Washington establishment. The inference that a personal relationship (romantic or not) could have influenced him to do anything that even appear to have bent the rules could damage his appeal and blunt his attempts to broaden the base of his votes among independent voters.

McCain is scheduled to appear at a press availability this morning at 9:00am ET. This will be his first test as the presumptive nominee to demonstrate how he will perform under this kind of pressure. The "straight talk" he has long championed will be parsed a hundred different ways and compared to the story and the public record. How he handles the allegations raised could set the pattern for his general election campaign.

You can watch McCain's press conference live on CBSNews.com at 9:00am ET.