JOHN McCAIN insists that he has still not decided whether to run for president in 2008.
But as one of America’s most popular politicians sits in his Senate office, he gives the impression of a man already consumed by the decisions a President McCain would make.
He would make clear to the American people that military action against Iran was an option. Bombing? He nods. He would have Colin Powell in a McCain Cabinet. Unlike President Bush — the man who beat him to the 2000 Republican nomination — he would veto any Bill that contained “pork barrel” spending. Tackling global warming would be a priority.
In “about a year”, Mr McCain tells The Times, “we will decide”. In the months after this November’s mid-term elections, he will ask himself: “Do my list of talents and strengths match up with the priorities of the American people?” For Mr McCain, it appears that question is already being answered.
The Vietnam War hero and outspoken Republican maverick, staunchly conservative but with rare cross-party appeal, is the hottest ticket in Washington: front-runner among his party’s early presidential contenders, more popular with Democrats than many of their own politicians, and with polls showing him easily defeating Hillary Clinton in a presidential contest.
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One of the main reasons for Mr McCain’s bipartisan popularity is his trademark straight talking. He does not employ the politician’s tools of artful dodge and dissembling. When he answers a question, he says what he thinks.
America has made “terrible mistakes” in Iraq. The consequences of failure there would be “catastrophic”. The whole region, he says, would slide into “Muslim extremism”.
The US, he says, is paying a price for its mistakes in Iraq in its inability to deal with the nuclear threat from Iran. Military action must always be the last option but, he cautions: “There is only one scenario worse than military action in Iran and that is a nuclear-armed Iran.”
Mr McCain was shot down over Vietnam and spent more than five years as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. Two of those were spent in solitary confinement, and during one he was consistently tortured. He might have died of skin cancer five years ago had a facial melanoma not been removed. He looks smaller and slightly frailer than he does on camera, and in 2008 he will be 72, older than Ronald Reagan when he became President.
But age and war have lent him a bracing candour. He disdains timidity. A long-time hawk — he speaks of “rogue-state roll back” years before Mr Bush took office — he is still one of the most articulate defenders of the invasion of Iraq.
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But he has been scathing in his criticism of the war’s prosecution. He took on the White House and won in his campaign for a law explicitly banning the torture of terrorist suspects. He wants inmates at Guantanamo Bay tried or released. The runaway spending of the Bush regime disgusts him.
Such a disdain for party-line politics, and his crusade for campaign finance reform and against global warming, have made him many Democrats’ favourite Republican, even though he is anti-abortion and sceptical about welfare spending. John Kerry implored him to be his 2004 running mate.
Instead Mr McCain threw himself into stumping for Mr Bush, whose 2000 primary campaign against Mr McCain was one of the dirtiest in recent political history. In the South Carolina primary, flyers appeared stating that Mr McCain had fathered a black child (he has an adopted Bangladeshi daughter), while rumours were spread that he had committed treason as a PoW and was mentally unstable.
“After I lost [in 2000] I had one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life, which was to wallow in self-pity,” Mr McCain says. But then he decided “not to look back in anger. People don’t like sore losers.”
He “decries” the bitter partisanship of US politics today. He abhors the attacks that were launched on him and the smearing of Mr Kerry’s war record in the 2004 election. “But it was not the ‘dirty tricks’ that defeated me in the South Carolina primary,” Mr McCain says. “It was because George Bush had the entire Republican establishment behind him and ran a better campaign.”
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Mr McCain appears to have made peace with the Bush establishment. His party’s conservative base, which he has infuriated on issues from tax to immigration reform, appears ready to forgive him as he looks the best bet to stop a Clinton restoration.
But he is still not afraid to torment Mr Bush. The White House has refused to release pictures of Mr Bush standing with Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican lobbyist. “One of the great things about countries like ours — the pictures of Jack Abramoff will come out,” Mr McCain laughs.
The greatest thing going for Mr McCain is that every time his Republican party hits another problem, he climbs higher in the polls. He has campaigned against the excesses of lobbyists and the unholy nexus of politics and money.
He “loves” General Powell, the former Secretary of State. “Colin Powell still has a lot to contribute to this nation.”
Are he and General Powell “Rinos” — Republicans In Name Only? “Well, if I was Colin Powell and 90 per cent of the American people respected me, I would not care if they called me a banana.” One suspects that, for now at least, Mr McCain would not care either.
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SHOOTING FROM THE LIP
On the 2000 Republican primary
‘After I lost I [spent] a couple of weeks feeling sorry for myself. It really was a wonderful experience to wallow in self-pity. But I decided one night to stop that foolishness and be grateful for having had the chance to run for president’
On the consequences of failure in Iraq
‘When we lost in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh’s successors didn’t want to come after us. These guys want to come after us. It will be chaos; it will not be confined just to Iraq. The Saudis are very unstable, as you know, and it could be catastrophic’
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On Iran
‘There is only one scenario worse than military action in Iran and that is a nuclear-armed Iran’
On the G8 Summit
‘I believe this Administration has made a terrible mistake by ignoring this issue [global warming] and future generations will pay’