McCain hasn't gone quite that far, although his name was mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate for the Democrats in 2004, and the Democrats have, on occasion, urged him to caucus with them in the Senate.
But analysts say he will need to distance himself from President Bush if he wants to win in November. Hyping Roosevelt's legendary independence could be an effective way for McCain, who also fashions himself as a maverick, to appeal to moderates now captivated by his presumed opponent, Sen. Barack Obama.
McCain also compares himself to Roosevelt on environmental policy; his website even says: "A McCain White House will reflect the guiding principles of Theodore Roosevelt, America's foremost conservation president." Roosevelt set aside about 230 million acres of land for conservation and laid the framework for the modern national park system.
Theodore Roosevelt IV, great-grandson of the former president and a McCain supporter, said he admires the Arizona senator for bucking his party in opposing oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and federal subsidies for ethanol.
"John has shown immense amounts of courage that are certainly in the tradition of the Old Lion," said Roosevelt, a former chairman of the League of Conservation Voters.
Comparisons are also drawn on the foreign policies of the two. McCain, a former Navy officer, sees Roosevelt as a key player in the creation of the modern armed forces.
Contemporaries decried Roosevelt for what they saw as imperialistic and militaristic tendencies. McCain has taken offense to that characterization of his hero.
"Some critics, in his day and ours, saw in Roosevelt's patriotism only flag-waving chauvinism, not all that dissimilar to Old World allegiances that incited one people to subjugate another and plunged whole continents into war," McCain said in 2006. "But they did not see the universality of the ideals that formed his creed."
Observers say McCain needs to be careful about comparing himself to Roosevelt, who drifted leftward over his 40 years in the spotlight. (Today it's called flip-flopping.)
"Contemporary Republicans are well to the right of where Roosevelt was in 1912 in terms of their view of the power of government," said presidential historian Lewis L. Gould. "If Sen. McCain were to get beneath the surface, he'd have to say, 'There are some parts of Roosevelt I like and some parts I don't like.' "
