Hidden Depths

But he won, and McCain's reputation as a maverick ("Mavericks" was the initial title of one of his books) was born soon after his arrival in the House in 1983. He started speaking his mind right away, recalls Mike DeWine, who came to Congress the same year. "First thing I remember was John in the House, not too long after orientation, right after Reagan put the Marines in Lebanon. He goes to the House floor and shocked a lot of people saying, 'No, this is a mistake, we shouldn't do it because we can't protect them.' If he thought something, he'd tell you, and he'd go straight to the floor with it."

Around this time, DeWine says, there was a sex scandal surrounding pages and two members of the House. The question of the hour was how severe the punishment should be. DeWine walked up to McCain one day in the back of the chamber. "I remember asking him what he thought the punishment should be. He said, 'These two congressmen are superior officers, they have a high duty to the people in their charge and they violated that duty. We have to be very tough on them.' That's how he looked at that incident—that we in the House had an obligation, like superior officers in the military, to protect those under us. It's a duty, it's an honor, it's a responsibility. As soon as I asked, his answer was—boom, no hesitation—'This is how it has to be'."

When McCain's stoicism falls away—which it often does—it cedes the field to either a warm sentimentality or, sometimes, a righteous anger. In 1989, furious about what he saw as the hypocrisy and injustice of the assaults on President George H.W. Bush's nomination of his mentor John Tower to be secretary of Defense, McCain told Jim Exon, a Democrat from Nebraska, that "what you know is a lie, and you're a goddamned liar." McCain also, by his own recollection, brought "my nose to within an inch of his as I screamed out my intense displeasure over his deceit and my general frustration with the injustice that was being done to my friend." During a telephone interview with two reporters from The Arizona Republic about the Keating Five savings and loan scandal, McCain "called them idiots and worse. I shouted at them, cursed them, and eventually slammed the phone down on them."

McCain has paid a price for his more passionate outbursts. "It was always interesting that so many of his colleagues were backing Governor George Bush in 2000," says Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican senator from Rhode Island who is now an independent and has endorsed Obama. "That's an indication of something—usually your colleagues band around one of their own, but that wasn't the case in 2000."

Those who love him, though, really love him. John Warner of Virginia, who was a friend of McCain's parents, says the son is both smart and sentimental. "John has an academic side to him, and he's a voracious reader," says Warner. "I've sat next to him hour upon hour at hearings, and I've seen him go through eight- to 12-page memorandums and still keep track of what everyone is saying." And he has the personal instinct to reach out. "He may have a backbone of steel, but he's very sensitive to people," says Warner. "I've had health problems this past year or two, and he's always the first to call and ask what he can do for me. He's got a soft side. He wouldn't admit it, but he's got it."

About a year ago, McCain went to the Senate floor after visiting a wounded Marine at Bethesda Naval Hospital. The man was terribly injured, and Susan Collins of Maine says McCain told her and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina about the meeting. "His evident compassion for this wounded Marine was so heartfelt, his eyes welled up when he was describing him," says Collins. "That's John McCain. He only told a few of us who were close to him about this. He didn't call in the press. He cares deeply about our troops, visits wounded Marines and soldiers all the time … and does it quietly."

Those who believe him to be a single-minded soldier who is not open to the force of fact misread his history. He is curious, particularly for a man of his years—and his mother, at 96, is the same way, which suggests he may have another quarter century ahead of him. "Life is like a constant surprise to both of them," says Salter of McCain and his mother. "It's why he reads so much. And when you travel with him, it's just a brutal pace. Seven countries in 10 days—you wake up and have no idea where you are, but McCain knows." During a congressional trip to Asia, McCain and a fellow senator wandered into a local market. The other senator could not wait to get back to the hotel, remarking: "Well, this is the s––t they buy, let's go," while McCain was fascinated by everything.