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 will make.
He would make clear to the American people that military action against Iran is 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 contains “pork barrel” spending.
Combating global warming would be a top priority. In “about a year” Mr McCain tells The Times, “we will decide.”
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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 for him.
The Vietnam War hero and outspoken Republican maverick, staunchly conservative but with extraordinary cross-party appeal, is currently the hottest ticket in Washington: frontrunner among his party’s early presidential contenders, more popular with Democrats than many of their own leading politicians, and with polls showing him easily defeating Hillary Clinton in a presidential contest.
One of the main reasons for Mr McCain’s bipartisan popularity is his trademark straight talking, a trait vividly on display during his interview with The Times. 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 warns: “There is only one scenario worse than military action in Iran and that is a nuclear-armed Iran.”
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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. A scar on the left side of his face bears testament to the fact that he might have died of skin cancer five years ago had a facial melanoma not been removed in time.
He looks smaller and slightly more frail 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 leant him a bracing candour. He disdains timidity. A long-time hawk - he was talking about “rogue-state roll back” years before Mr Bush entered office - he is still one of the most articulate defenders of the decision to invade Iraq.
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 legislation explicitly banning the US torture of terror suspects. He wants inmates at Guantanamo tried or released. He is disgusted by the runaway spending of the Bush Administration.
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, despite the fact that he is anti-abortion and sceptical about welfare spending. John Kerry even implored him to become his 2004 running mate.
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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 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 in 2000, and the smearing of Mr Kerry’s war record during 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.”
Mr McCain appears to have made peace with the Bush establishment. Even his party’s conservative base, which he has infuriated on issues from tax to immigration reform, appear ready to forgive him, as he looks the best bet to stop a Clinton restoration.
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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.
He “loves” General Powell, the former Secretary of State, and would have him in a McCain cabinet. “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.”
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One suspects that, for now at least, Mr McCain would not care either.