The John McCain Wave of 2000 can be compared to the popular-wave phenomena in the presidential elections of 1940, 1952, 1972, 1976, 1984 and 1992.
In 1940, as in 2000, the Republican Party had lost two national elections in a row. Moreover, the incumbent Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had changed the electoral calculus such that a traditional Republican seemed destined for doom in November.So the GOP gambled on Wendell Willkie, a charismatic neophyte with no Republican baggage; he had been a registered Democrat just the year before. For a brief period, Willkie ran ahead of FDR at the polls. But in the end, Willkie fell short.
Twelve years later, in 1952, the GOP's losing streak had stretched from two to five. Once again, Republicans bypassed their own political cadres for an outsider, the military hero Dwight Eisenhower.
Over bitter intraparty opposition -- the nomination wasn't clinched till a cliffhanger floor vote at the Chicago convention -- Ike won, then went on to triumph easily in November.
In 1972, another populist wave crested, this time over the Democrats. The entire party establishment had endorsed the candidacy of Edmund Muskie of Maine, yet the Down East senator was mushy on the hottest issue of the moment, the Vietnam War.
So Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, the leader of the antiwar doves, mobilized the growing New Left-ish constituency. McGovern mugged Muskie on his way to the Miami Beach convention -- although he himself was mauled in the general election.
Four years later, in 1976, the Democrats turned to another insurgent, Jimmy Carter, the former Georgia governor. But Carter was different; he was a born-again Baptist from a region where the Democrats needed electoral-college help. This time, his combination of post-Watergate morality and post-McGovern electability worked, carrying him to the White House.
In 1984, former Vice President Walter Mondale, like Muskie 16 years before him, was the choice of the Democratic bosses, even though few party pros thought he was the strongest challenger to Ronald Reagan.
And so from the West came Sen. Gary Hart of Colorado, a self-proclaimed new face with new ideas. Hart swamped Mondale in the New Hampshire primary, but his flash-flood soon ebbed in the hot sun of personal scrutiny. Mondale stumbled his way to the nomination and then to defeat in November.
In 1992, Ross Perot seemed to be, for a brief Larry King Live moment, the perfect antidote to the don't-read-my-lips lies of George H.W. Bush and the I-didn't-inhale fibs of Bill Clinton. Like Willkie, the citizen-politician of a half-century before, Perot actually led in the presidential polls for a time. He lost, of course, but not before demonstrating the degree to which voters admired a system-shaker-upper.
The common threads running through all six of these waves -- plus, now, the McCain wave -- is disgust with the incumbent, combined with a sense that the leading challenger lacks the ability either to win the election or to fix the perceived problems once elected. Although he has served in Congress for 17 years, McCain has maintained, even enhanced, his standing as independent outsider.
Today, the nation wonders if McCain's wave will wash all the way to the White House.
James P. Pinkerton is a columnist for Newsday.