John Mccain

In the war for the Republican presidential nomination, George W. Bush has deployed the traditional big guns of the party establishment and carpet-bombing TV ad campaigns. Yet he's been unable to subdue John McCain, whose mobile, guerrilla operation is bolstered by a merry band of fellow travelers in the press. Imagine that, in a roomful of journalists, Bush or Al Gore had told a joke about the ugliness of the teenage daughter of a political rival. Or had used a racial slur.

For now, Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democrats' 2000 vice presidential nominee, is still welcome at Senate Democrats' weekly lunches -- even if he is actively campaigning for Republican presidential candidate John McCain. But the welcome mat may not be out for long. If Democrats expand their Senate majority in November, the Connecticut senator could find himself in a political no man's land. But at least until then, he holds a coveted committee chairmanship and has attracted no hint of retribution.

John McCain was in his element: a crowded town-hall meeting in an open-air Fort Myers, Fla., seafood restaurant. He strolled from one side of the room to the other with a microphone in one hand, jabbing his finger in the air as he called for honorable victory in Iraq and better veterans healthcare. When a heckler shouted "4,000 American dead!" and "Bring them home!" McCain paused and asked him to wait his turn.

It had been more than a year in the making, this meeting between Roberta McCain and me. The smart guys who managed her son's presidential campaign got all queasy at the thought of Roberta, unfettered, in a journalist's thrall. I managed a few tantalizing phone calls with John McCain's outspoken mother, a column on my vain pursuit of an interview and a promise that the end of the presidential race would bring a chance for us to share some straight talk.

Evan Mecham, impeached as Arizona's governor in 1988, officially earned a ballot spot Friday as an independent candidate seeking to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain. The 68-year-old Mecham was certified for the ballot when a judge dismissed McCain's legal challenge to his candidacy. Most political analysts believe Mecham clouds McCain's prospects of winning a second term.

An alternative convention that promises to be anything but conventional got off to a raucous start Sunday when Sen. John McCain was interrupted by boos and hisses for departing from talk of campaign finance reform to underline his endorsement of George W. Bush.

Once, not long ago, John McCain was Bill Bradley's ally in the fight for political reform. Today, McCain may be Bradley's worst enemy as he fights for political survival. Both candidates--one surging, the other stumbling--hope to emerge victorious in today's Washington state balloting, gaining propulsion for an epic coast-to-coast vote that follows a week later. Virginia also holds a GOP primary today, and Republicans in North Dakota will attend statewide caucuses.

YOU CAN READ 1,000 profiles of GOP presidential front-runner John McCain without encountering a single paragraph examining his core ideological philosophy. His career is filled with such distracting drama -- torture at the Hanoi Hilton, noisy conversion to the campaign-finance-reform faith, political suicide on the Straight Talk Express -- that by the time you're done with the highlights, and perhaps a few "maverick" anecdotes, time's up.

THE POLITICAL storyteller envies the political reality of 2008. Compared with the gray mediocrities usually offered up by the Republican and Democratic parties for the presidency, John McCain and Barack Obama are true characters. The grizzled war hero who's been a fixture on the political landscape for a generation, the brilliant young street-organizer who comes out of nowhere to electrify the country -- these are archetypes that could populate the likes of "The Best Man," "Advise and Consent," "The Manchurian Candidate."

Long a staple of American politics, the candidate endorsement is playing a complicated role in Campaign 2000. In a brand-new world where independent voters are more important than ever before, one entrenched interest endorsing another is hardly the best means to ignite the indifferent. George W. Bush, for example, lost miserably in New Hampshire, hopped a plane for suddenly-more-crucial South Carolina, and hit the ground with a secret weapon. Dan Quayle.