Although he values his independence, McCain saw first-hand in that race that a maverick presidential run can only go so far. His increasingly enthusiastic campaigning for the president this year will likely win him points with the Republican Party mainstays he would need in 2008.
"My sense is that McCain has made this decision [that] this is the party he is part of, and he wants to do whatever he can for it," said David Winston, a pollster for House and Senate Republicans. "He knows this is where his future is."
Despite sharp disagreements with Bush on some high-profile issues -- he slammed the proposal for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and endorsed more modest tax cuts -- McCain votes to support Bush the vast majority of the time.
"He supported [Bush's] election in 2000 and campaigned very hard for him, and people don't seem to remember that," said McCain political aide John Weaver. "While he has some significant policy differences [with Bush], at the end of the day, he is a member of the same tribe."
That particularly applies to defense issues, where McCain's hawkish views usually fit closely with those of the president. While some critics viewed Bush's description of terrorism's "axis of evil" as extreme, McCain had four years earlier called for a "rogue state rollback." (Bush's axis consisted of Iran, Iraq and North Korea, while McCain also placed Serbia on his list of untrustworthy nations.)
The convention's opening night theme of national security accentuates McCain's common ground with Bush. He will begin by telling Americans that they have a "rendezvous with destiny" similar to the one Franklin D. Roosevelt described to the nation as war loomed in Europe.
That's not to say that McCain and his allies have entirely forgotten their run-ins with Bush and his supporters in 2000. McCain came under attack following his unexpected victory in the New Hampshire primary. Partisans who were never clearly identified suggested in phone calls to voters in racially sensitive South Carolina that McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. He and his wife, in fact, had adopted a Bangladeshi daughter.
McCain railed against the "sleazy" tactics and later told Bush that he should be "ashamed" for supporting a group that said McCain had "abandoned" fellow Vietnam veterans. Some people who know him say McCain will never get over shots leveled at his family.
