MAN OF THE PEOPLE

THE LIFE OF JOHN MCCAIN

PAUL ALEXANDER

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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MAN OFTHE PEOPLE

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MAN OF THE PEOPLE

THE LIFE OF JOHN MCCAIN

PAUL ALEXANDER

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Copyright 2003 by Paul Alexander. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Alexander, Paul, 1955-Man of the people : the life of John McCain / by Paul Alexander.

p. cm.ISBN 0-471-22829-X (alk. paper)1. McCain, John, 1936- 2. LegislatorsUnited StatesBiography. 3.

United States. Congress. SenateBiography. I. Title.E840.8.M26 A44 2002328.73092dc21

2002014898

Printed in the United States of America.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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http://www.copyright.comhttp://www.wiley.com

once again, for Lauren Elizabeth Alexanderand for my family

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Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Wedidnt pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for,protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we willspend our sunset years telling our children and our childrens childrenwhat it was once like in the United States where men were free.

Ronald ReaganPhoenix, ArizonaMarch 30, 1961

. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died invainthat this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedomand that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall notperish from the earth.

Abraham LincolnThe Gettysburg AddressNovember 19, 1863

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PREFACE

Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955, I grew up in theDeep South at a time when that region of the country wasstill dominated by the yellow-dog Democrat, a personwho would vote for a yellow dog if the dog was a Democrat.

In the late 1960s, Nixon devised his Southern strategy; even later,the Reagan Democrat emerged. But in the early to mid-1960s,when I was first becoming aware of politics, the Southern politicallandscape featured giants like Congressman Hale Boggs ofLouisiana; Senator John Sparkman of Alabama; Speaker of theHouse Sam Rayburn of Texas, whose lasting influence on the Con-gress following his death in November 1961 would be so profoundthat a Capitol Hill office building now bears his name; SenatorJohn Stennis of Mississippi; and, of course, the giant of the giants,Lyndon Baines Johnson. In Alabama, as the world came to know,we had a complicated character for governor by the name ofGeorge Wallacea famously self-avowed racist who got morethan 90 percent of the African-American vote the last time he ranfor office, a man so worshipped by Alabama voters he once ran hiswife, Lurleen, for governor, when he was term-limited out, and shewon. My grandmother kept a framed photograph of GovernorLurleen B. Wallace hanging on her living room wall. When LurleenWallace died of cancer before she finished her term in office, I re-member my grandmother crying as she watched the state funeralon television.

When youre a yellow-dog Democrat, these are your frames ofreference. All of this would change when George McGovern ran forpresident in 1972, since the South fell behind Nixon. That theSouth went for Jimmy Carter in 1976 was an illusion; Southerners

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voted for him because he was a native son. As it turned out, he wasnot at all in the tradition of Johnson and Rayburn, so the South, al-most all of it, drifted back to Reagan in 1980. It was there solidlyfor Reagan in 1984, and for George H. W. Bush in 1988. It took twonative sons, Bill Clinton and Al Gore, to bring the South back tothe Democrats in 1992 and 1996, but the partys hold on the regionwas so tenuous that Gore lost important Southern states, most no-tably his home state of Tennessee, when he ran for president in2000. Had Gore won just Tennesseeforget Floridahe would bepresident today.

By the time I began my career as a journalist in the late 1980s,versions of the Southern Democratic figures with which I had grownup were more or less gone. There were some throwbacks to the yellow-dog DemocratsSenator Sam Nunn of Georgia or Con-gressman Tom Bevill, the champion of working people whose niece Ihad gone to school with in Alabamabut not many. Perhaps thatswhy, when I first started writing nonfiction, I avoided politics, eventhough I had been obsessed with the subject for most of my life.How could I not, coming from a state that was once run by Gover-nor Lurleen B. Wallace?

I wrote a book about the American poet Sylvia Plath. I wrote abook about the Hollywood icon James Dean. I wrote a book aboutthe myriad scandals surrounding the Andy Warhol Foundation forthe Visual Arts. I also wrote numerous articles for an array of maga-zines, but I did not write about politics. Then, in 1995, an editor Iknew, Elizabeth Mitchell, called and asked if I would like to write anarticle for the first issue of George, the political magazine beingstarted by John F. Kennedy Jr. I lept at the chance, and the article,The War on Time Warner, a piece as much about Bob Dole run-ning for president as it was about gansta rap, appeared in the issuewith Cindy Crawford on the cover. It was during the writing of theGeorge piece that I decided to focus my writing on politics.

Over the ensuing years, I did a number of articles for George. Iwrote about attempts to get Colin Powell to join the Dole ticket in

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1996. I wrote about NASA, the organization closely associatedwith Johns father. The last piece I did for George was a profile ofGeorgette Mosbacher called Little Red Georgette. When Johnsaw Georgette Mosbacher at an event in Washington not longafter the article appeared, he told her how proud he was of thepiece and how happy he was to include it in his magazine. Later,once I found out about the exchange, I was pleased, since by thetime I learned of the remark, John had died. I was delighted toknow the last piece I wrote for his magazine was one he admired.

In the meantime, I had also started writing for Rolling Stone. Mypiece on George W. Bush that appeared in the summer of 1999All Hat, No Cattleis still the longest magazine article to be pub-lished on him to date. Afterward, I went on to write about otherpoliticians, among them John Kerry, James Jeffords, and, as it hap-pened, John McCain.

IIfirst encountered John McCain on the campaign trail in 2000, whenhe was running for president. In the fall of 1999, I remember watch-ing on C-SPAN as he conducted in New Hampshire one of the townhall meetings for which he would become famous. On this outing, hewas talking about returning the government to the people, and Iflashed back to all of the speeches I had heard by the populist South-ern politiciansthose yellow-dog Democratswith whom I hadgrown up. He was not talking about a Republicanism I had come tounderstand, one where the bottom line always has to do with corpo-rate America. He was preaching old-time, grass-roots populism, andhis audience was loving it. When I got to see him on the trail upclosefrom New England to New York to South CarolinaI wit-nessed firsthand how he connected with his audience. He was notyour run-of-the-mill politician. He was a true believer who wanted tochange the very way Washington had come to function. He was a vi-sionary. He was dangerous. His followers adored him.

Throughout the fall and the winter of the presidential race, thenumber of McCainiacs grew tremendously. In New Hampshire,

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McCain went from tracking in the five percent range in the polls towinning the Republican primary by a landslide. At the same time, hecreated just as many enemies as he did supporters; specifically, he be-came a threat to the hardline establishment of the Republican Party.That was why, in a phrase, he had to be taken out. And he was takenout in the Republican primary in South Carolina, in one of the mostbrilliant, effective, and ugly political assassinations ever seen inAmerican politics. It was at this point that McCains relationship withhis party became even more tenuous than it had been before. Heknew what had happened to him. He had ceased to be a party maver-ick and had become a threat who had to be crushed. He was.

When I sat down to interview him one-on-one in the spring of2001 for Rolling Stone, after the man who had vanquished him,George W. Bush, had become president, McCain was still bitter,though he was careful to deal with his emotions the way he oftendoes with details in a life that has been full of tragedywith humor.He relished the chance to tell me the story of how he and Cindyhad gone to the White House to have dinner with George andLaura Bushand the two food tasters. The joke, which he told overand over in the spring of 2001, was funny, but telling. Regardless ofwhat they said, regardless of the fact that McCain even campaignedfor Bush in the general election, McCain and Bush didnt like eachother. Period.

The animosity was still there later in 2001 when I talked withMcCain, in September. We spoke so long during this meeting,which became the basis for The Rolling Stone Interview with JohnMcCain that was published in late August, that the rough draft ofthe interview was 22,000 words. Over and over in our conversation,McCains unhappiness with the Bush Administration and its policiescame through. During the fall of 2000 and throughout 2001, I hadalso interviewed McCain for the radio show I co-host with JohnBatchelor, Batchelor & Alexander. Each time I asked McCain about hisrelationship with his party, he gave me the same answer: He washappy to be a Republican. This seemed odd when so much of his

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political rhetoric indicated he was not happy with his party. Finally,in the fall of 2001, I asked one of his longtime political advisers whatI thought was a flip question: How long is the Senator going to tellme that he cannot envision a way to leave the Republican Party?His adviser answered, Until he tells you he can envision a way toleave the Republican Party.

Thats where we are today. I entitled this book Man of the Peoplebecause, even though he arrived in Washington in 1983 a Reagan-ite, McCain has evolved over his 20-year political career into theone current politician who best articulates the hopes and dreams ofthe common man, the citizen out there in Kansas or Oklahoma orAlabama who wants to see a return to populism in America. Thathe is an authentic American hero because of his service in Viet-nam, though he himself will never admit he is, only underscoresthe authority he has to say what he does. If my grandmother werealive today, residing as she did in Cordova, Alabama, she wouldhave a framed photograph of John McCain hanging on her livingroom wall.

PAUL ALEXANDERNew York, New YorkAugust 2002

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their help in the preparation of this book, I would like tothank Congressman Gary Ackerman, Everett Alvarez, TomArrasmith, Mike Briggs, Joyce Campbell, Senator ThadCochran, Karen Cook, Eugene Corey (of Brave New Words),

Craig Crawford, Monica Crowley, Ben Davol, Beth Day, ColonelGeorge (Bud) Day, Patricia Duff, Senator John Edwards, Con-gressman Eliot Engel, Kevin Fogerty, Frank Gaffney, Paul Galanti,Robert Giuffra, Jonathan Goldberg, Jordon Goldis, Betsy Got-baum, Mike Guy, Gordon Hamel, Senator Gary Hart, AnnHassinger (of the United States Naval Institute), Edward W. Hayes,Susie Gilder Hayes, William Haynes, George Hiltzik, CharlesHooff, Arianna Huffington, Richard Johnson, Senator John Kerry,Congressman Peter King, Arthur Klebanoff, Katie Levinson, Car-olyn Licht, Beverly Lyall (of the Department of the Navy), Mal-colm Matheson, Linda Mellon, Maggie Melson (of the EpiscopalHigh School), Gary Meltz, Tim Meyer, Georgette Mosbacher,Meredith Mosley, Captain Chuck Nash, James Ortenzio, PhilPulizzi, Governor Ann Richards, Cindy Rinfret, Peter Rinfret, KenRingle, Steve Sadicario, Richard Sementa, Congressman Christo-pher Shays, Richard Shepard, George Shipley, Senator Alan Simp-son, Carl Smith, Erik Smulson, Kalman Sporn, Michael Steinhardt,Admiral James Stockdale, Roger Stone, Gene Suhir, Orson Swindle,Harry Thomas, Dick Thomsen, Rip Torn, Amanda Vaill, GeneralPaul Vallely, Jack Van Loan, Michael Vlahos, David Wade, SenatorJohn Warner, John Weaver, Bill White, Daniel White, RobertWhittle, Angie Williams, Carl Wilson, Robert W. Wilson, DavidWinters, and Patrick Woodson. I was also helped enormously byMark Juszczak, to whom I am grateful.

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