You Wanna Take This Outside?

George W. Bush and John McCain are frantically trying to prove they're outsiders. Each claims he's a veritable John the Baptist, a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Because their outsider status is tenuous, they're also pointing fingers; instead of "outing" each other, they're "in-ing."

It's a comical spectacle, because while each man has a point, neither one is nearly as much of an outsider as, oh, say, Steve Forbes, who demonstrates that there's such a thing as being too outside.

Naturally enough, Bush campaigned, from the start, on his record in Texas. But in the giddy, pre-New Hampshire days, he didn't mind raking in endorsements from the Republican establishment, and he thought he'd really ice the deal when he brought his parents along to a campaign event. "Our boy won't let you down," former President Bush said, sounding like the entire Republican party's Dad. Nothing looked more old school than the ex-president and his wife waving to the crowd and praising their son.

But just about then, Bush started to sense that something was wrong, and he looked for a new role.

With all that party support, all that money and all those connections, it wasn't easy to claim outsider status. But Bush has apparently concluded it's a matter of geography, not connections. He started telling voters "My area code is 512, not 202."

Some argue that simply by virtue of being a governor, Bush is an outsider. Brian Jones, a Bush spokesman, says, "Governors understand that you want to limit regulation and provide policies that help people." Maybe you thought a Republican senator could understand that too, but "Washington is full of bureaucracy and laws that have effects on people's lives that aren't always intended."

Momma's Boy Barbara Bush appears to have locked up the Old White Republican Women vote for her son.

McCain is making a virtue of necessity. "If I'm the establishment," he mused, "you have to be a little bit curious why I'm opposed by every member of the establishment." He has, indeed, garnered far less support from party leaders and office holders than Bush. But please, 17 years in Washington doth not an outsider make.

"He's a committee chairman - he's anything but an outsider," argues Republican consultant and CBS Election Analyst Linda DiVall. "But he's a maverick, he's an independent and he's not afraid to say what he thinks."

And Bush? Can he make any hay with this outsider line? "Bush has to get less caught up in labels and more caught up in the message of what he's done as governor of Texas, and what he would be able to do as president," DiVall says.

The point that neither candidate makes is that maybe being an insider isn't such a bad thing. What's wrong with a candidate who knows something about Washington, how it works, how to make deals, how to get your legislation passed?

The Bush crowd argues a leader's a leader, wherever he leads. "Governors go on to lead the country," Jones explains, "because governors have to live by results, and voters understand that."

McCain has to walk a tightrope here, because he feels he has to sell his knowledge without selling his Washington address. His media consultant, Mike Murphy, says judiciously that voters don't really want an insider, but "they like the idea of a skillful guy who knows Washington and is a real reformer and who can get stuff done."

Really, neither candidate is much of an outsider. But that's probably a good thing. Think of some real outsiders and you think of Steve Forbes, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot. When it comes to the presidency of the United States of America, "people aren't willing to experiment. They want to know things will get done. Those three people didn't pass that test," DiVall notes. Voters won't pick someone without experience in government, either inside or outside the beltway.

But even as we dismiss this whole outsider issue, the hounds of rhetoric are following new traces. Now everyone wants to be a reformer, whatever that is. McCain's media consultant, discussing the issue with a CBS News producer, says it's a candidate's message (another sadly overused term) that really matters. "McCain has a mssage of reform," says Mike Murphy. "And he has been the leading reformer inside the Senate." Bush, of course, is now the "reformer with results." So brace yourself for another vinegar-tongued battle over semantics.