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CAMPAIGN PORTRAIT: John McCain
Copyright � 2000 Nando Media
Copyright � 2000 Associated Press
Originally published in September 1999
By EUN-KYUNG KIM
WASHINGTON (November 16, 1999 10:11 a.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - The son and grandson of Navy admirals,
John Sydney McCain was destined for a military career from the word go.
His calling in the world of politics seemed less obvious.
"I don't think my grandfather or my father ever voted," McCain said of his
namesakes. "They were both very apolitical."
Both men believed that "democracies were ruined by military officers
getting into politics," said McCain's brother, Joe McCain. That left the two
boys, who also have a sister, to feed their interest from the family's political
junkie, their mother, a true-blue Republican who "watches and reads more
news than John and I put together."
"He and I and mother used to spend I-don't-know how many hours at the
dinner table arguing about politics and history," said Joe McCain, a free-
lance writer. They dissected legislation. Sometimes, they spoke of "what
mistakes historians made" or about the current economy.
"We were all basically on the same side of the fence," the younger McCain
said, "but it was like Talmudic scholars arguing about a single word or an
adjective."
Now with young children of his own, John McCain is the one trying to
distance politics from his family. But as a presidential candidate struggling
to surface from a deep pool of Republican hopefuls, the task has become
increasingly difficult. His wife, the millionaire daughter of an Arizona beer
baron, had avoided the Washington social scene but now frequents the
campaign trail with her husband. Eventually joining them will be their four
children, plucked from their ranch-style Phoenix home where they have
known very little of the nomadic lifestyle that McCain experienced as a
Navy brat.
The paradox is among many for this 63-year-old Arizona senator, a father
and husband who has kept his personal life private and yet has centered
his campaign around his outspoken personality.
Dubbed a maverick for his habit of butting heads with fellow Republicans,
McCain has enjoyed a high profile existence in Washington as the
chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Outside the Beltway,
however, he has to introduce himself to Americans more familiar with
names like Bush and Dole.
McCain spent more than 20 years in the Navy, a quarter of it in a
Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. On Oct. 26, 1967, his jet was shot down
over Hanoi during a bombing mission. He broke both arms and shattered a
shoulder and a knee while ejecting from the aircraft. When he landed, he
was pulled from a lake by a North Vietnamese mob that stabbed him with
bayonets.
McCain was beaten repeatedly for the next 5 1/2 years. When his captors
learned he was the son of a prominent Navy admiral, they offered to
release him early. McCain refused to go along with what he saw as a
propaganda ploy, and he insisted that soldiers captured before him leave
first.
The war story is a central theme in his campaign, one featured prominently
in ads and videotapes. But McCain insists he gets "bored stiff" talking
about it.
Since the day he returned, McCain said, "people wanted to paint myself as
a person who performed heroic acts, which I know not to be true."
Earlier this year, McCain mocked his war hero image at Washington's
Gridiron Club dinner, taking to the stage in a jacket crammed with phony
ribbons and medals. The event was a chance to show that Vietnam does
not cast on shadow on all his thoughts or actions, and is far from the
defining moment in his life, he said.
"Yes, it's part of my legend but it is not necessarily a compelling argument
for me to be president," McCain. "In fact, all it does is warrant a
consideration."
He said the defining factor will be when voters decide whether he has the
vision and the principles to lead the country into the next century.
McCain's vision revolves around one word: reform. Reforming the
government, Social Security, the education system, the tax code, the
military and, of course, the way political campaigns are financed.
Though his voting record shows him to be consistent with his GOP
colleagues, McCain has a reputation for bucking the party line, particularly
on issues like campaign finance reform and
tobacco legislation. While a freshman House member, McCain stood up to
a political hero, Ronald Reagan, and voted against sending Marines to
Lebanon.
Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas fought bitterly with the Arizona senator over
tobacco tax and campaign finance.
"John McCain has been willing to stand up and fight on issues that he truly
believes in when there's been tremendous peer group pressure to shut up
and get out of the way," said Gramm, whose brief 1996 presidential stint
was led by McCain. "I have seen him do it over and over again.
Signs of McCain's independence emerged early. A cocky, rebellious cadet
at the U.S. Naval Academy, McCain graduated in 1958 fifth from the
bottom - a fact he now repeats almost boastfully.
McCain felt tremendous pressure to live up to the expectations set by his
father and grandfather throughout his Navy career. "The way they shaped
me was through their standards of honorable conduct, their devotion to
country, to the Navy and to their profession," he said.
McCain experienced the most trying time of his life when his own honor
was questioned during the so-called Keating Five scandal. In 1991, he and
four other senators were hauled before the Senate Ethics Committee to
answer allegations they improperly intervened with federal banking
regulators on the behalf of Charles Keating, a savings and loan financier
who later was convicted of securities fraud. McCain was friends with
Keating, who occasionally loaned his Caribbean vacation home to the
senator.
"That year with Keating Five was harder for him than Vietnam," said
Gramm, a family friend who has known McCain since their days in the
House. "Nobody questioned his credibility in Vietnam."
The ethics panel eventually criticized McCain for "showing poor judgment"
but did not recommend any action be taken against him. McCain later
returned $112,000 in campaign loans he received from Keating, but he
fears the episode "will probably be on my tombstone."
The instance could be joined by other dark spots.
McCain has admitted that post-Vietnam "indiscretions" led to his divorce
from his first wife, Carol, with whom he raised three children. His current
wife, Cindy, admitted an addiction to painkillers during the early 1990s that
led her to steal drugs from a medical charity she founded.
And then there's his temper, which once was as well-known as his
independent streak.
"He's not perfect, but he's not a phony so I think that's a plus.," Gramm said.
Apparently, so do his constituents in Arizona. McCain was first elected to
the House in 1982 after telling critics who labeled him a carpetbagger that
his longest stay in any previous home was in Hanoi. Last year, he won a
third term to the Senate, running unopposed in the GOP primary and
handily defeating his Democratic opponent in the general election.
Until recently, McCain was a regular weekend fixture in Arizona, where his
family has remained relatively unaffected by the political life. He said the
main interest his younger children, ages 8 to 14, have shown in his
presidential campaign has been in the advantages a win could bring them -
head-of-the-line privileges at Disneyworld.
"I've approached this to them and said, 'Look. The nomination process is
going to be over by next March. I'm going to be gone a lot. I'll be working
hard. But we're going to have fun,"' McCain said. "I'm not afraid of losing.
I'm going to do everything I can, but at the end of the day, if we win, it'll be
great. If I lose, we'll have a wonderful life."
----------------------------------------------------------
CAMPAIGN PORTRAIT: George W. Bush
Copyright � 2000 Nando Media
Copyright � 2000 Associated Press
Originally published in September 1999
By CONNIE CASS
MIDLAND, Texas (November 30, 1999 9:13 a.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - Restless as tumbleweed and rolling toward
age 30 without a career, George W. Bush headed back to the spunky West
Texas boomtown of his childhood. Maybe in Midland he could tap a gusher
and finally sink some roots.
He brought his father's sterling name, degrees from Yale and Harvard,
some $13,000 left in his trust fund, and his strongest personal asset - an
exuberant charm spiked with wisecracks.
"He walked into the office and he hadn't changed a bit, the same impish
George," recalled Joe O'Neill, a childhood friend. "He had a conversation
with every secretary on the way back to me. He knew everybody in the
office by the time he left."
Bush never found much oil in Texas, but he slowly found his way. He
married and fathered twin girls, quit drinking, began studying Scripture, and
made his an unsuccessful foray into the family business by running for
Congress.
He learned to court friends and political supporters of his father, the vice
president. And he hooked up with the oil investors who would eventually
help him become managing partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team.
Bush used the Rangers post to cultivate celebrity status and prepare for a
gutsy challenge to Democratic Gov. Ann Richards in 1994. The Rangers
deal also made him a multimillionaire.
He's clearly wised up, settled down. Yet friends say Gov. George W. Bush,
the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, isn't that
different from "The Bombastic Bushkin" who stormed the oil fields in 1975.
He's impatient and super-competitive, whether at Scrabble or golf or
politics. He's physical, quick to drape his arm around a stranger or grab a
friend in a headlock. And he's blunt - "the son who pulls no punches and
tells it like he thinks it is," according to Barbara Bush. He's "sort of gruff,"
his wife concedes, and it can be intimidating.
He's also irreverent - the class clown in his Methodist adult Sunday school.
Asked what word he most associated with Christmas, Bush answered
"Santa Claus." When his mother's cocker spaniel died, Bush greeted her
with, "I'm so sorry, doggone it." He showed up at a fancy costume party as
Gandhi, wearing orange body paint and a droopy white sheet that "looked
like he was walking around in a diaper," longtime friend Don Jones recalls.
"He'd just pop off without thinking what was going to come out of his
mouth," said buddy Charlie Younger. "He's reined it in some now."
But there are still the quips and raised eyebrows and winks, often
conveying an ironic detachment from whatever carefully orchestrated
campaign event he's starring in. The message, says wife Laura, is "don't
get too serious."
George Walker Bush was born July 6, 1946 in New Haven, Conn., where
his father, already a flying hero of World War II, was charging through Yale.
When "Georgie" was 2, his parents moved West to chase the oil boom.
They settled in Midland, where friends recall an idyllic 1950s childhood of
Little League, BB guns and backyard barbecues.
But young George also endured great sorrow at age 7, when his little sister
Robin died of leukemia. In her memoir, his mother credits Georgie's
endearing musings about his sister - once suggesting she was watching a
football game from heaven - with salving his parents' grief.
"This incredible bond was formed between mother and son that exists to
this day," said Michael Wood, a longtime friend. Bush's wit and verve
mirror her instead of his more reserved father.
The next child, now Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, was seven years younger.
Three others followed: Neil, stung by the S&L scandal of the 1980s and
now a business consultant; Marvin, a venture capitalist; and Doro, wife of a
Washington lobbyist and mother of four.
None seems to have felt the weight of their father's successes as much as
the eldest, often called "Junior" though he's one name short of George
Herbert Walker Bush.
He followed his father's path to prep school in Andover, Mass., and then
Yale, but failed to live up to his legacy in academics or sports. Instead, he's
remembered at Andover for organizing stickball tournaments and lavish
pep rallies that brightened an otherwise rigid campus.
At Yale, like his father, he was tapped for the secret Skull and Bones
society and became president of Delta Kappa Epsilon. Fraternity brothers
remember him as "the life of the party" among a group preoccupied by
beer, sports, soul music and, of course, girls. He surprised friends with a
short-lived engagement to a young woman from Houston his junior year.
Friends say Bush avoided the nascent Vietnam War protests at Yale and
didn't brook criticism of his father, then a Texas congressman supporting
the war. He had a student draft deferment.
Shortly before graduation in 1968, Bush signed up for pilot training in the
Texas Air National Guard, where it was unlikely he would be sent to
Vietnam. Bush says he wanted to learn to fly like his father; he denies
allegations that family connections helped win a coveted slot and avoid the
draft.
"I met the qualifications," Bush has said, and "I served my country."
Thus began what Bush calls his "nomadic period." He moved to a singles
complex in Houston, chased women, drank bourbon, tooled around in a
sports car and flew F-102 fighters on weekends. He bounced through
several jobs, helped with his father's congressional campaign, and worked
for a year at a charity that mentored poor black boys.
He was trying to "reconcile who I was and who my dad was, to establish my
own identity in my own way," Bush said in a 1989 interview. Unsure what to
do next, he enrolled in Harvard, earning a master's of business
administration.
Bush acknowledges he drank too much but has rebuffed persistent
questions about illegal drugs. Recently, he denied using drugs within the
past 25 years, a period that covers his return to Midland and ascent to
governor.
The earth in Midland is so dry that the only shade trees are planted and
pampered, and they end at the edge of town. In the surrounding oil fields,
pump jacks peck at the dusty ground like giant, lazy birds.
At age 29, Bush returned to the town where he was raised, to grow up.
For him, it was "entrepreneurial heaven." On the heels of the Arab oil
embargo, prices were skyrocketing and fortunes were blossoming.
"George didn't know anything about the oil business really," said one of his
business partners, geologist Paul Rea. "The principal reason was because
his dad did it, and he wanted to make some money of his own."
With guidance from his father's local friends, Bush began as a "land man,"
putting together deals to buy mineral rights. No one would have known from
his worn jeans and hand-me-down shirts that his father was ambassador to
China.
"I've never seen anybody live so cheap," muses oil man Buzz Mills, who let
Bush set up a desk in the cramped kitchen area of his office.
Once when his car stalled on a deeply flooded road, Bush stripped to his
skivvies and climbed out a window, carefully holding his coat and trousers
above the water - he was headed to a meeting and had to protect his only
business suit.
Friends introduced Bush to Laura Welch, a reserved librarian who had
attended junior high with him in Midland. They were married three months
later. She became a stabilizing influence, "like ballast to a rocking ship,"
Younger said. Their twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, are now 17.
The marriage started on the campaign trail in an unlikely bid for an open
congressional seat. Bush staged an upset in the 1978 GOP primary but he
lost the general election after Democrat Kent Hance successfully branded
him a carpetbagger.
Buoyed by investments from family friends back East, his oil exploration
business performed modestly well until prices plummeted in 1981. Two
Cincinnati investors gave him a boost by merging their larger company,
Spectrum 7, with his.
Years later, the same pair would tip him off that the Rangers ballclub was
coming up for sale. He put them together with other big money to buy the
club from family friend Eddie Chiles in 1989. When the team was sold last
year, Bush's original $600,000 investment plus a hefty bonus paid off $14.9
million.
But his last year in Midland was a difficult, introspective time. His business,
like much of the industry, was reeling from falling prices. He focused on his
growing faith. "His conversion was like a struggle up a steep hill," said Don
Jones, a weekly Bible study partner.
Bush remained an enthusiastic social drinker. His wife, Laura, had told him
"it would probably be a good idea to stop," as had his colleague Rea. After
a boisterous, sentimental 40th birthday dinner with friends, Bush woke up
with a hangover and abruptly swore off alcohol.
Another weight was lifted when Spectrum 7 was bought out by Harken
Energy in late 1986, leaving Bush with a handsome chunk of stock and
$120,000 consulting contract. Rea says their financial angel was attracted
in part by Bush's name - his father was then Ronald Reagan's vice
president.
His days as a full-time oil man over, Bush moved to Washington as a self-
described "loyalty thermometer" for his father, overseeing the political hired
help in the 1988 presidential campaign. His tough manner offended some,
but Bush felt he had proven himself to Dad.
"I knew there were times - I could just tell - when he respected my opinion,"
he said in an interview after the election.
And the experience turned his own ambitions back toward politics. "He got
a taste of it again," said O'Neill. "And it whetted his appetite."
-----------------
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