Pick brings quick strike from McCain campaign

SEDONA, Ariz. — Within minutes of the confirmation on Saturday morning that Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. would be on the Democratic ticket, aides to Sen. John McCain shot out a statement and released an advertisement that pointed out that Biden, a Delaware Democrat and an also-ran in the 2008 primaries, had described Sen. Barack Obama as not ready to be president.

So far, McCain has been publicly silent on Biden, his good friend across the Senate aisle. “John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off,” Biden, speaking seriously, told the comedy host Jon Stewart in 2005, in a video clip that instantly found its way into a new McCain television advertisement.

McCain has instead been mulling his own vice-presidential pick, recording material for more television commercials in the spectacular rock formations of the surrounding landscape and practicing his acceptance speech for the Republican National Convention.

Mark Salter, the senior aide who wrote the address, said on Friday, “I know he’s working on the speech, because they’re phoning in edits every few hours.”

McCain has also spent time in interviews. CBS’ “60 Minutes” was here on Friday, and Katie Couric, the anchor of the network’s evening news show, was expected to interview McCain on the weekend.

Two top McCain aides, Charlie Black and Nicolle Wallace, are with the candidate, who has been off the campaign trail for three days at his home near the red rocks and buttes of Sedona, but there was no word from them on whether he has settled on a running mate. People close to the campaign said that Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, remained a top possibility.

As the political world was turning its eyes to Springfield, Ill., and the new Democratic ticket, McCain was reducing his public appearances to coffee runs to Starbucks.

McCain has spent a half-hour every morning in six- to nine-car motorcades in pursuit of cappuccino. Presumably there is a coffee maker at McCain’s compound, Hidden Valley Ranch, but aides say he likes to go out for his Starbucks ritual, even if it means a 10- or 15-minute drive with large entourages of Secret Service, staff members and journalists to Cottonwood or Sedona.

On Thursday and Friday mornings, the drill was the same: A small pool of reporters assigned to follow McCain’s public forays assembled in vans at 7:15 a.m. in the scrub brush at the end of the dirt road leading from the candidate’s home. Shortly after 8:20 a.m. on Thursday and shortly before 8 a.m. on Friday, McCain rumbled by in his motorcade as the journalists, staff members and Secret Service fell into a column behind him.

On Thursday, the caravan went to Cottonwood, where it turned into a mini-mall with a Safeway supermarket, an Office Max and McCain’s objective, Starbucks. On Friday the convoy headed to a Starbucks in Sedona, where McCain’s wife, Cindy, sported a bright pink cast on one wrist because of a recent sprain from enthusiastic hand shakers.

McCain may never live down not knowing in a recent interview the number of houses he has. (His campaign said four, Obama’s campaign counted eight, with Cindy McCain; records show that Cindy McCain owns 10, including rental properties.)

The same murkiness applies to descriptions of McCain’s Sedona retreat, which the McCain family calls a cabin. The property is widely described as a ranch.

In fact, McCain’s escape is a lush oasis that stands in contrast to the rock canyons of Sedona to the north and the cactus-lined deserts to the south. It sits in a valley along the banks of Oak Creek, and there is a pond and a fruit orchard.

There are at least five structures on the property: an original house and a smaller cabin behind it that were there when a business entity of Cindy McCain’s bought the property in 1985; a large house with a wooden deck that Cindy McCain bought later; and two smaller houses. The McCains live in the original house and use the larger house for guests and outdoor grilling, one of McCain’s pastimes in recent days.