Robert Draper, author of the new Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush, and also of one of my favorite journalism books (Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History), spent a year off and on tailing the John McCain camp, especially attached-at-the-hip co-author Mark Salter, and writes about it for GQ.

It's a good and interesting piece, though it plays into the well-worn conceit that the real McCain is the rough-hewn, straight-talking maverick, and not some kind of front-running fancy-lad. Consider the opening set-piece, which begins at a chi-chi DC fundraiser at the Corcoran Gallery of Art back when McCain was riding high in December 2006:

Coat-check girls welcomed the 800 guests at the entrance to the dramatically dimmed beaux arts venue; inside, waiters ladled out dainties and proffered trays of carefully chosen wines. The dapper, white-haired senator from Arizona himself held court at the west end of the hall [...]

Of course, that maverick ethos was nowhere in evidence that night, a fact of which Salter was well aware. "It's difficult," he'd said earlier, ruminating on the unlikely notion of John McCain as the establishment's candidate.

Why, you'd almost think that McCain was a total stranger to having dainties ladled in his presence. In fact, he enjoyed his first Beltway salons more than six decades ago. As I write in the book:

The myth that John McCain is a "man of the people," a natural-born genius at retail politics, is so all-pervasive that one feels like an atheist at Jesus Camp suggesting otherwise. [...]

From the beginning of his political career, McCain has never won an election without out-spending his opponent, usually by massive amounts. He has engaged in intensive door-to-door politicking just twice (Phoenix in 1982, New Hampshire in 1999–2000). And he has lived the bulk of his life inside the very Beltway he's so fond of campaigning against. With the notable exception of the soldiers he's served with and the staffers he's employed, McCain has favored the company of corporate bigwigs, powerful politicians and nationally known journalists since before he ever ran for office.

Ask Arizonans whether their senior senator is a "man of the people" and those who have an opinion will laugh. "He's just above it all; he doesn't have time to mess with peons," said Lyle Tuttle, chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Committee. [...]

John McCain knew before puberty that he came from a special family, and he was groomed from age 10 for elite leadership. His grandfather was in those famous surrender pictures from the deck of the USS Missouri at the end of World War II, and when he died days later it made the front page of the New York Times. His father, a well-regarded submarine commander during the war, became the Navy's first chief of information and then the branch's liaison officer to Congress. "My parents kept a house on Capitol Hill," McCain wrote in Faith of My Fathers, "where they entertained leading political and military figures. My mother's charm proved as effective with politicians as it was with naval officers. The political relationships my parents forged during this period contributed significantly to my father's future success."

Probably the biggest value of the Draper piece is in the adoring quotations from the usually camera-shy Mark Salter. Examples:

"McCain's job is just to be himself," Salter told me as the two of us sped through Virginia, heading toward the Beltway. "And my job is to draw people to him for the same reasons I'm attracted to him." [...]

Salter also loved the little quirks of the man: his horrendous donut-and-Coke diet; his pockets bulging with feathers and other superstitious totems; the way he stood at attention while on the telephone with Bush because dammit he's our commander in chief. These eccentricities added texture to McCain's authenticity, a quality Salter especially revered having spent his early adulthood in Davenport, Iowa, hammering railroad spikes for $4.25 an hour and hanging out in a local bar called the Jolly Roger with gentlemen who had their girlfriends' names tattooed on their guts. As Salter would confess, "John McCain is the kind of man I would've liked to have been if I'd made the right choices in life."

Then, when the campaign imploded in early July (right as I was finishing my manuscript, by the way), McCain's trusty co-author came within inches of leaving the campaign along with the fired/resigned Terry Nelson and John Weaver:

Salter didn't get an audience with McCain until seven the following morning, in the Russell Senate Office Building. McCain was still livid. He recycled his monologue about the campaign's rampant excesses. Salter believed that bringing Davis back into the office would lead to a staff upheaval and deal a death blow to an already listing campaign. And though Salter will not spell out what McCain told him, it seems apparent that the senator wanted to know this: Was Mark Salter loyal to John McCain or to McCain's campaign organization?

According to two senior staffers, Salter told McCain something like: When I met you, I was 34 and didn't know what the hell to do with myself. Through you I met my wife. Through you I became a published author. Because of you, I've got two daughters and two houses. Jesus, John. I'm a McCain guy.

Draper's theory, which I don't share, is that McCain got hammered in the polls over Iraq and pandering to conservatives. I happen to believe (and it's only that -- belief) that those issues were way more important to liberal journalists, who don't really vote in great numbers during Republican primaries; immigration and a long-distrustful GOP base I think had much more to do with it. Still, McCain's donor base might be more aligned with the concerns being raised this spring by the press, Draper suggests:

In any event, to the extent that McCain was pandering to conservatives, he appeared to be doing one hell of a lousy job at it. The campaign wasn't attracting new donors, and all the negative press was hitting him in the pocketbook. According to one senior staffer, the big donors, being "high-level consumers of information and tending to be more moderate," were closely following McCain's utterances on Iraq throughout the first quarter and "weren't coming onboard." Additionally, says another top adviser, "we sure heard a lot about the Falwell thing."