John McCain — flexible aggression

Contradictory impulses
In his first race in Arizona, John McCain campaigned as a well-connected insider with “experience in Washington” who could bring home pork — parochial spending projects — for the state. (He angered Senator Barry Goldwater by attempting to steal credit for a defense contract the senator had steered to the state.)

In his 2000 presidential run, he campaigned as an anti-politician. He denounced pork-barrel spending, made campaign finance rules the centerpiece of his agenda, and railed against the influence of special interests in Washington. He opened his bus to the press and mocked the idea of “message discipline.”

And though for years he had played down his prison ordeal (“I don’t want to be the P.O.W. senator,” Mr. McCain once told a reporter. “I don’t think it made any change in my basic character”), he began talking about it as a more formative experience. Echoing his 1999 autobiography, “Faith of My Fathers,” Mr. McCain described Vietnam as the crucible that taught him the importance of dedication to a cause greater than himself — a formulation that became his campaign theme.

This time around, Mr. McCain — still the “maverick” — has variously run as anointed front-runner, then cash-strapped long shot, and finally a battle-tested “fighter” out to change Washington. In the final rounds of his campaign against Senator Barack Obama, his Democratic rival, Mr. McCain is again in full game face.

His campaign has pelted his rival with attacks that make some of his old advisers wince, like questioning Mr. Obama’s patriotism or tying him to “a domestic terrorist.” He made a high-stakes bet on a telegenic but untested running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, with no qualms about leading the charge.

If the election were a contest to hold your breath under water, “you would be giving John McCain mouth to mouth before he would let Obama win,” said his friend, former Senator Kerrey.

Sometimes blind to contradictions
At times, Mr. McCain’s confidence in the righteousness of his own cause may blind him to contradictions. He bashes lobbyists as “birds of prey” but hires a staff of former or “on leave” lobbyists to run his campaign. (While attacking the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Mr. McCain was recently embarrassed by the disclosure that until their collapse this summer they had been paying big monthly fees to the government relations firm of his campaign manager, Rick Davis.)

Mr. McCain promises to avoid even the appearance of impropriety or official favors. But around the start of his 2000 race, he wrote a letter of recommendation and arranged a Pentagon meeting to help a big donor win two lucrative California land deals. At the same time, several top advisers were warning him to keep his distance from a female lobbyist because the two appeared overly friendly, two participants in those conversations said.

In more reflective moments, Mr. McCain says he tries to maintain a stoic detachment about the prospect of victory or defeat, a habit of mind he says he acquired as Navy pilot and prisoner of war. “I tend to be fatalistic about these things,” he said in an interview not long after he had locked up the Republican nomination, shrugging off his success.

The son and grandson of four-star admirals, Mr. McCain wrestles publicly with the burdens of trying to live up to their standards of both accomplishment and honor. Contemplating his first run at the White House, he worried about balancing his ambition for the prize with his own sense of virtue, he wrote in “Worth the Fighting For.”

After his loss, he professed himself grateful, at the age of 65, for what might be left of his time. “I did not get to be president of the United States. And I doubt I shall have reason or opportunity to try again,” he wrote, but added, “I might yet become the man I always wanted to be.”

This report, "John McCain, Flexible Aggression," originally appeared in the New York Times.

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