Pedal to the Metal

And attention is paramount to his success. He has a sharp nose for outrage and a fast tongue for spreading it, and his maverick star power -- born in 2000 and enhanced since -- grants him a cachet that transcends traditional political alignments.

"He's acutely aware that the way he wants to be requires attention," says Mark Salter, McCain's longtime chief of staff and the co-author of his three books. "John's got to make a public fight to get stuff done."

It helps that public opinion surveys rate McCain as one of the most admired senators. In an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released last week, McCain was viewed more favorably than Bush, Kerry or Cheney. He is popular among voters in both parties, particularly those who consider themselves independent, moderate and non-ideological. These are not traditionally the people who pick Republican (or Democratic) nominees, but the survey positions McCain as No Nonsense America's favorite ambassador to Washington.

"John McCain is the closest thing American politics has to a national hero," says the Almanac of American Politics.

McCain has become a political weather system unto himself. He is the smart-mouthed kid from the back of the class, leaving his smarty-pants colleagues to compete for his reflected glory. "You think these guys would keep mentioning my name if I didn't have this national name recognition?" McCain asks. "No way."

Norquist distills McCain's political views to "whatever will get him on TV" and theorizes that McCain suffered withdrawal after getting so much attention in 2000. "He needs to keep reinventing himself, so it becomes like Madonna's business plan: He always has to do something new to get himself back on the cover of magazines."

When he returned to the Senate in 2000, McCain vowed to hold up every piece of legislation he could until he was given a fair fight on McCain-Feingold, his landmark campaign finance reform bill that passed in 2002. "He basically said, 'I'm gonna spend everything I've got, contact everyone on my e-mail list and fight fight fight until I get this done,' " Salter says.

He did. McCain-Feingold became the law and McCain a winning crusader for a resonant public issue.

It's instructive that McCain's biggest political triumph was rooted in his biggest shame. In the early 1990s, he was one of five senators implicated in an influence-peddling scandal involving the collapsed Lincoln Savings and Loan and its principal, Charles H. Keating Jr., a powerful Arizona developer and McCain donor. A special counsel found McCain guilty of "poor judgment," and he spent much of the 1990s browbeating himself for the transgression. He cited the matter as his signature humiliation long after people stopped mentioning it.

McCain has always leavened his hard-charging assault with doses of self-flagellation (he spoke in 2000 about how his campaign was handicapped because "we haven't got the most brilliant candidate"). It is a novel approach to persuasion -- in contrast to Bill Clinton's word-splitting evasions and George W. Bush's aversion to admitting mistakes. It is also a vital part of McCain's straight-talk bona fides.

"He's got an amazing ability to see through the fog of nuance and not get bogged down in the underbrush," Hagel says.

"He has a great sense of how to present an issue," says Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, another admirer. "He has a wonderful sense of timing."

Lieberman recalls a visit to McCain's vacation home in Sedona, Ariz., four years ago. There was a terrible thunderstorm, and smoke was visible out the window. Jimmy, McCain's youngest son, then 10, was setting off firecrackers.

"I said to John, 'That was you when you were Jimmy's age.' " Lieberman says. "John just laughed at that."

Bedwetters vs. Thumbsuckers

McCain is an insufferable back-seat driver. This should surprise no one.

"Go straight down Central," he tells staffer Paul Hickman, who is pulling out of the long driveway of McCain's home in Phoenix. "Take one street over. Fifty-one is closed. So go down Central or Jefferson."

McCain is off to appear on "Face the Nation," just after 6 on a Sunday morning. He did two book signings the day before, Tucson in the morning and Phoenix in the afternoon. Lines snaked through both stores, and by day's end, McCain has signed about 1,000 books, some with long inscriptions. ("This guy had me write, like a whole page," McCain says. " 'Good luck in Iraq, I know you'll be brave,' all that. Jeez.") Afterward, McCain repaired to a Mexican restaurant for dinner with Cindy and two of their four children (he has another three adult children from his first marriage). He sat with an ice pack on his left (signing) hand.

Now McCain sips a double cappuccino in his seat and intersperses his instructions with diverse items and commentaries: