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mocratic control. Aides to two senior Senate Democrats say it was never clear how serious McCain himself was about the proposal, and any possibility that it might actually happen was short-circuited when another Republican, James Jeffords, of Vermont, made the move first, in 2001.
That was then, when memories of the Bush camp's gruesome, dishonest attacks on McCain were still fresh. When I asked McCain how a rapprochement with Bush could ever have been achieved, he began by saying, "For 10 days I wallowed," then made it clear that the best balm was his realization that the campaign had raised his stature. "We came out of the campaign, even though losing, enhanced nationally, with a lot of opportunities in the Senate legislatively, with more influence, and eventually, if necessary, to be able to go at it again." Whatever the psychic or political specifics, the ultimate result was the celebrated McCain-Bush campaign hug of 2004, in which McCain found himself enveloped in a back-wrapping embrace and upside-the-head smooch. Since that moment McCain has borrowed from the Bush political playbook, aiming to make himself the prohibitive front-runner for the 2008 primaries, and happily snapping up former Bush aides and supporters from key states such as Iowa and New Hampshire, including Terry Nelson, an Iowan and political director of the 2004 Bush campaign. Nelson, now a private consultant in Washington, approved the most widely condemned negative ad of the 2006 midterms, produced by a quasi-independent group financed by the Republican National Committee and aimed at the black Democratic Senate candidate in Tennessee, Harold Ford Jr. In the ad, a sultry white actress says she had once met Mr. Ford at a "Playboy party," then cradles her outstretched thumb and little finger to her ear and coos, "Harold, call me." After the ad sparked an uproar it was taken off the air. Given the racially charged campaign of innuendo deployed against McCain by Bush supporters six years ago, and McCain's outrage at such tactics, the McCain camp's failure to condemn Nelson or the ad struck many as surprising. All John Weaver managed to say at the time was "We're pleased the ad has been pulled down." Nelson is set to manage McCain's '08 campaign.
The Old Man
In the two years leading up to the recent midterm election, McCain kept up a presidential-level schedule, with 346 appearances for Republican candidates and causes around the country. He traveled in small jets, sometimes alone, often with an aide or two; by early fall, his pac had already spent more than $1 million on air charters. On a rainy morning in mid-October, McCain, his longtime chief fund-raiser, Carla Eudy, and I are bound from Washington, D.C., to Milwaukee on a roomy Beechjet, all dark wood and soft leather, with snacks on demand. McCain, as is his habit, props his feet on the opposite seat and opens the newspapers.
"O.K., Carla, several drugs show promise for alzheimer's," he reads from The Wall Street Journal.
Eudy smiles. "I need that."
Turning the page, McCain mutters, "It's not you that needs it."
A few minutes later, reading over his schedule for a long day ahead in Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Iowa, McCain murmurs, "We're going from Joe Foss Field to Bud Day Field! I'm getting old. I knew both of them."
Foss, for whom the airport in Sioux Falls is named, was the World War II flying ace and governor of South Dakota. Day became the nation's most highly decorated military officer since Douglas MacArthur. He served in three wars, was one of McCain's P.O.W. cellmates, and, as a civilian lawyer, handled McCain's divorce from his first wife, Carol, in 1980; the airport in Day's hometown of Sioux City, Iowa, is named for him. (McCain did not know General Billy Mitchell, the World War I aviator for whom the Milwaukee airport, where we'd be landing shortly, is named, but his grandfather did, and McCain wrote about him in Worth the Fighting For.)
At 70, McCain is both matter-of-fact and ruminative about his age. He may have DNA on his side. His father and grandfather, accomplished navy admirals, died prematurely after lives of hard drinking, hard living, and careers cut short, but his mother, Roberta, the daughter of a wealthy oil wildcatter from Southern California, is hale and unstoppable at 94. She spent this past fall driving herself around Europe, and because she was too old to rent a car, she simply bought herself a new Mercedes and hit the road. McCain gets laughs when he acknowledges that he is "as old as dirt, with more scars than Frankenstein"--but he always makes sure to mention his redoubtable mother.
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