What These Eyes Have Seen

Once McCain smells corruption, he does not let go. When he began investigating Boeing for what he regarded as a sweetheart deal with the Air Force to lease tankers, it turned out that Boeing had broken the law by hiring a former Air Force procurement officer who had worked on the tanker contract. McCain relentlessly badgered the Pentagon, holding up Air Force promotions until the Defense Department produced some allegedly inculpatory e-mails. The Pentagon balked and McCain wound up in the office of the then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, yelling at the top of his lungs, say a Pentagon official and an adviser to Rumsfeld who declined to be identified discussing a confidential meeting. McCain seemed to believe that Rumsfeld had impugned his patriotism, an unpardonable insult in McCain's world view. Mark Salter, a longtime adviser, denies the incident happened. "He never yelled at Rumsfeld," says Salter. "He bruised him up in committee hearings, but he never yelled at him."

McCain may have a bit of a vindictive streak. "John has an enemies list longer than Nixon's," says a former Pentagon official who did not want to get on it. "And, unlike Nixon, McCain really does try to get you." After the Boeing scandal, three Air Force officials who quit all found that one of McCain's top aides had quietly spread word around the defense community that anyone hiring them would risk the senator's displeasure. And he still has an impetuosity that is nervous-making to old foreign-policy hands. One of them, a former high official in several Republican administrations who occasionally advises McCain (and wishes to continue to) worries to NEWSWEEK about McCain's "quirky" judgment and his unwillingness to change his mind once it's made up.

McCain will trim his sails politically when necessary, but he is obviously dispirited by anything that smacks of pandering. A year ago he was the front runner, claiming the mantle of the Republican establishment and hoping to inherit the Bush fund-raising machine. But when his fund-raising stalled, he dumped some of his top campaign staff and wound up in the role of maverick once again, pushing from the outside. McCain claims that staff shake-ups are nothing new to presidential campaigns (true) and that he lost support among conservatives because he favored a compromise on immigration. In early 2007, when some of his advisers tried to get him to soften his stances on immigration and Iraq, he snapped, "Don't try to change my mind," says a former aide who wished to avoid McCain's wrath by remaining anonymous.

It was a characteristically principled stand, and yet McCain's leadership skills are called into question by the near meltdown of his campaign. "Nobody knew who the boss was," says one of McCain's longtime friends and advisers, who declined to be named discussing the internal workings of the campaign. "You couldn't get people to return your calls. It was bad." More troubling, says this associate, was McCain's blind eye to the problem. "He didn't really seem to want to deal with it."

Last summer McCain told NEWSWEEK that he was "never quite comfortable being the front runner, per se." A half a year later, having passed the true test of winning the Republicans-only primary in Florida, he is once again the front runner. "Whoops! Trouble!" cackled McCain last week as he mordantly contemplated prosperity. The campaign cash is flowing in again; he and his aides joked about no more cheap motels as they enjoyed the plush surroundings of their Beverly Hills hotel suite. McCain, who never attained the stars and bars worn by his father and grandfather, has a real chance to become commander in chief. He will no doubt do everything in his power to keep the faith of his fathers. It will be a struggle. It always has been.

With Pat Wingert, Holly Bailey, John Barry, Michael Hirsh, Karen Breslau and Suzanne Smalley

© 2008