The first Mr. McCain was the one the public saw a lot on television: irreverent, cheerful, reverential — of veterans, senior voters, Gold Star mothers, small-business owners — and thoughtful about policy. Reporters dragging themselves to a 6 a.m. van call would find Mr. McCain fully caffeinated, probably from a breakfast with a donor an hour earlier. “Come on jerks!” Mr. McCain would bellow, his grinning, pink face poking out from under a hat. The other Mr. McCain, brooding, impatient and sometimes dismissive, seemed to surface when he was uncomfortable with the bend that politics had put in his road. In 2010, when confronted by voters who questioned Barack Obama’s birthplace, that Mr. McCain stared at the floor uncomfortably, unlike the one in 2008 who had steadfastly defended his opponent.

Source: New York Times August 26, 2018 00:30 UTC