text: A defining moment of the “old” John McCain—as many Americans, even some of his friends, have begun to refer to him as he was before his run for the Presidency in 2008—took place in February, 2000, during his first bid for the White House, when he was challenging George W. Bush for the Republican nomination in the South Carolina primary. McCain had recently upset Bush in New Hampshire and was in a buoyant mood, vowing that, like “Luke Skywalker fighting the Death Star,” he would not only defeat Bush but reform a party corrupted by “big money” and, as he later put it, “agents of intolerance.” 
   
   Within days, sordid attacks began to appear: flyers on car windows claiming that McCain, who had adopted an orphan from Bangladesh, actually had fathered a black child; recorded phone messages, or robo-calls, spreading rumors that McCain’s wife, Cindy, who had once been addicted to prescription painkillers, was a junkie; and lies, propagated by an obscure group of Vietnam veterans, suggesting that McCain had become a traitor while serving in Vietnam. 
   
   McCain’s response was decisive: he pulled from television his negative advertisements, and announced to supporters, “If we don’t prevail, my friends, we know that we have taken the honorable way.” On the evening of the primary, McCain and his family watched the returns in a hotel suite in Charleston. As the polls came in, showing that he had lost by more than ten points, Cindy wept. “How could they believe all that about you?” she said of the public. 
   
   McCain, after embracing his wife and children, headed down to a ballroom to deliver his concession speech. “I will not take the low road to the highest office in this land,” he said. “I want the Presidency in the best way—not the worst way. The American people deserve to be treated with respect by those who seek to lead the nation. And I promise you: you will have my respect until my last day on earth. The greatest blessing of my life was to have been born an American, and I will never . . . dishonor the nation I love or myself by letting ambition overcome principle. Never. Never. Never.” 
   
   In the final weeks of the 2008 campaign, it became clear that John McCain might lose more than the Presidency. On October 6th, slipping steeply in the polls, he held a rally in Albuquerque. Rather than speak off the cuff, as he preferred, he kept his eyes on a teleprompter. During the 2000 race, McCain was known as the “happy warrior,” but now his tone was harsh. Angrily waving a finger, McCain portrayed his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, as a shadowy figure who never seemed to reveal his true identity. McCain noted that Obama’s campaign recently had to “return thirty-three thousand dollars in illegal foreign funds from Palestinian donors.” McCain urged the audience to wonder, “Who is the real Barack Obama?” 
   
   Before he even finished the speech, he and his aides had begun their now notorious campaign—sometimes in public, sometimes sub rosa—to supply insinuating answers to this question. Ads appeared accusing Obama, who had served on the boards of two charities with William Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground, of being allied with a “terrorist.” Voters received flyers featuring a mug shot of Ayers and the words “Terrorist. Radical. Friend of Obama.” Then came the same kind of robo-calls that had savaged McCain in 2000, and that he had once denounced as messages of “hate.” McCain even hired one of the same firms that Bush used in 2000. The messages warned, among other things, that Obama had tried to stop doctors from caring “for babies born alive after surviving attempted abortions.” Meanwhile, McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, charged that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” Other surrogates claimed that Obama was “anti-American,” a “guy of the street” who “used cocaine,” and had “friends that bombed the Pentagon.” According to Newsweek, Michelle Obama asked an aide, “Why would they try to make people hate us?” 
   
   Early on, McCain vowed that he wanted “the most positive kind of campaign.” But even though he sometimes seemed uncomfortable, shifting in his chair or looking away from the camera, he was at the heart of those personal attacks—demanding that Obama confess his relationship to a “washed-up terrorist,” and proclaiming that Obama would “lose a war in order to win a political campaign.” 
   
   As the rallies of McCain and Palin grew angrier—at the mention of Obama’s name, supporters yelled “Traitor!,” “Kill him!,” and “Off with his head!”—McCain seemed startled by what he had helped unleash. When, at one rally, a woman called Obama an untrustworthy “Arab,” McCain turned ashen and stammered, “No, Ma’am. He’s a decent family man.” Afterward, Ray LaHood, a Republican congressman from Illinois, who earlier had condemned the campaign’s inflammatory rhetoric, told me, “That’s the John McCain I know.” 
   
   Obama and his supporters decried McCain’s tactics. Yet some of the strongest criticism came from people whom McCain revered or who had long revered him. And it was not merely about strategy—the backbiting that always consumes losing campaigns. It was about the very nature of John McCain. In their eyes, at least, their hero was losing not only an election but his reputation—or, as one prominent backer put it, “his soul.” 
   
   William G. Milliken, a moderate three-term Republican governor of Michigan, was part of the unusual coalition that had made McCain an almost singular figure in American politics. Although for most of his career McCain’s voting record was consistently conservative, he was far more popular with centrist Republicans, independents, and many Democrats than he was with the Party’s base. His appeal was rooted less in ideology than in character: he presented himself as a figure who would never pander or betray his convictions. When he fell short of his principles, as in the 1989 Keating Five scandal—the Senate Ethics Committee found that he “exercised poor judgment” in helping a major donor—his willingness to lacerate himself in public only reinforced this impression for many. ||||| George W. Bush’s bombastic return to the world stage has reminded me of my favourite Bush anecdote, which for various reasons we couldn’t publish at the time. Some of the witnesses still dine out on it. 
   
   The venue was the Oval Office. A group of British dignitaries, including Gordon Brown, were paying a visit. It was at the height of the 2008 presidential election campaign, not long after Bush publicly endorsed John McCain as his successor. 
   
   Naturally the election came up in conversation. Trying to be even-handed and polite, the Brits said something diplomatic about McCain’s campaign, expecting Bush to express some warm words of support for the Republican candidate. 
   
   Not a chance. “I probably won’t even vote for the guy,” Bush told the group, according to two people present.“I had to endorse him. But I’d have endorsed Obama if they’d asked me.” 
   
   Endorse Obama? Cue dumbfounded look from British officials, followed by some awkward remarks about the Washington weather. Even Gordon Brown’s poker face gave way to a flash of astonishment. 
   
   To be fair, this wasn’t completely unexpected. The degree of enmity between Bush and McCain — particularly following their legendarily dirty fight in the 2000 South Carolina primary — is hard to exaggerate. 
   
   Indeed Bush is far from kind to McCain in the parts of his new book that relate his “complex relationship” with the Arizona senator. I’ve yet to see a copy, so I don’t know whether he mentions how he voted. But it might be worth asking. He was certainly wavering.
target: – George Bush's stop-the-presses revelations just won't stop, though the latest comes by way of a dusty anecdote that's finally seeing the light of day. Alex Barker, writing for the Financial Times reveals that in an Oval Office meeting with Gordon Brown and other British dignitaries during the 2008 campaign season, John McCain came up in conversation. Bush reportedly told the group (according to two who were there): "I probably won’t even vote for the guy. I had to endorse him. But I’d have endorsed Obama if they’d asked me." Barker recounts the "flash of astonishment" that befell the British crew, but says the alleged comments weren't "completely unexpected," considering the lack of love between Bush and McCain (he points to their dirty fight in the 2000 South Carolina primary).