DATELINE: Mobile, Alabama

“When voters want a national Daddy, someone to be tough and strong and defend the country, they vote Republican. When they want a Mommy to give them jobs, healthcare… they vote Democrat.” - The West Wing, Series 7 Episode 2, ‘The Mommy Problem’

John McCain is counting pretty damn hard on the American people looking for a Daddy right now. With five days until the crucial Florida primary, the Republican front-runner is leading on his (horrifying, awe-inspiring) war record, and people are responding to it: to the point that none of his supporters we’ve met have seemed remotely interested in anything but national security. One woman at a Q&A had to virtually apologise for asking about something as irrelevant as the economy, and even then she was brushed off with a cursory answer that McCain is “a fiscal conservative”. Detailed stuff right there.

We went to two John McCain events in less than 24 hours in Tallahassee, Florida (the state capital, where the scandal of 2000 went down). One event was due to be addressed by his wife Cindy, the other by Senator McCain himself; both of them bailed at the last minute – making it a whopping four times we have been stood up by the McCains in the space of two weeks. We’re starting to wonder if he really wants the potentially decisive My Fellow Americans endorsement or not.

The ’surrogate’ speakers at each event encapsulated the McCain message though – first his friend, and fellow veteran, Senator Warner from Virginia, and then today, an entire ‘Veterans’ Bus Tour For McCain’, featuring servicemen (and POWs) of all ages from all manner of conflicts, each lauding McCain’s strength of character and leadership.

All of the talk has been about the nobility of service. Today’s event was in an aircraft hangar, the stage flanked by a Navy helicopter. Most of the crowd were either military, former military, related to military, or in awe of the military. These people weren’t looking to vote for a President per se; they want a Commander in Chief.

“We carry our service with us for the rest of our lives, and do so with solemnity” Sen. Warner says, and he’s right. Beforehand I approached a lone Vietnam vet, a man of 60 with glasses and a round, pudding-bowl face. I don’t know if it’s my notebook, my stubble, my accent, or none of the above, but the response is not warm. He doesn’t smile, but stares me straight in the eye, unflinching:

“Why am I for Senator McCain? Because I believe any man who can spend six years in a box, and come out with his mind intact, with his common sense still intact, has got my vote. We need strong leadership right now. It’s a dark time in world history, a critical time.”

He drops his fixed, bespectacled gaze and moves away. The day before, in The Urbane Restaurant across town (a bistro with the haughtiest slogan imaginable: ‘Refined. Sophisticated. Gracious.’) Nina, a student originally from Miami, tells me how hard it is organising events as a Republican on campus, putting up with disruptions from the student body’s liberal majority. But she doesn’t care about her peers; she was so sure McCain was the man to lead America on the national security issues facing America she filed her vote for him weeks ago.

“I have never seen a more threatening set of circumstances than those that will face our next President,” Senator Warner had said to the crowd of wet, wealthy Floridians, dangling umbrellas and jewellery from every limb. If the only people who voted in elections were golf club WASPs, veterans, and people paranoid that the world was about to end, then Sen. McCain would get 100% without ever breaking a sweat. Or turning up to an event.