Campaign 2000: The Power and The Story

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McCain was enough of a celebrity among freshman Representatives that they elected him President of their 1982 class. And to the extent that he focused on anything, it was helping lawmakers who had never worn a uniform make smarter decisions about what American soldiers should and should not be asked to do. He spoke out passionately about the need to aid the Nicaraguan contras. But even early on, he was not just Reagan's pet. In September 1983, barely nine months after taking office, he loudly opposed keeping U.S. Marines in Lebanon an additional 18 months. Though lots of speakers referred to Vietnam, McCain was among the few who had actually been there. Still, he lost, the Marines stayed--and a month later, when the bombing of the barracks left 241 servicemen dead, McCain was vindicated, as his party got its first taste of how willing he was to go his own way.

War is hell, and politics can be too when you treat it like one. Home-state politicians complain that as he rose to power, McCain worked to turn the Arizona Republican Party into his personal fleet, tacking to his orders and subject to his discipline. Anyone who stepped out of line would find McCain out recruiting primary challengers, even down to the city-council races. "You are either with him," says a local politician who supports McCain, "or you're wearing the black hat." Says his former administrative assistant Grant Woods, with whom relations have gone sour: "As a maverick McCain doesn't tolerate mavericks well."

It was not until he fought for and won Barry Goldwater's Senate seat in 1986 that McCain began to search for a broader mission. "In the Senate you have greater freedom," recalls former administrative assistant Chris Koch. "It's not that he had a specific agenda of A, B, C. He just wanted to get out of being perceived as just a Navy guy and war hero who is good on national security." And soon enough he had a chance to fight for a cause closer to his constituents' hearts--when he resisted a rise in Medicare premiums. It was his greatest political victory to date--and, as it happened, the next day brought the worst defeat.

Cindy McCain remembers exactly how she heard the news. She was in the hospital, recovering from painful back surgery. "A resident came in and threw the newspaper on the bed," she recalls. The headlines revealed that McCain had received $112,000 in campaign contributions from Charles Keating, the sleazy S&L owner whose collapsed empire cost taxpayers more than $3 billion and wiped out the stockholdings of thousands of small investors. "I guess your husband is not such a great guy after all," the resident told her.

McCain and four other Senators--all Democrats--were charged with meeting with Keating as he sought some protection from regulators who were closing in on his crumbling empire. In McCain's case, the charge was especially galling. When Keating asked for a favor and McCain resisted, Keating told another Senator that McCain was a wimp. The next time Keating appeared in McCain's office, the Senator took him apart. "I did not serve 5 1/2 years in a POW camp to have my integrity questioned," Koch recalls him saying.