Word: republicanized
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...John McCain, honor means telling the truth, doing the right thing rather than the easy thing and putting America's needs ahead of your needs. But as he has reminded us so many times, McCain is not a saint. And he is now the Republican nominee for President, the anointed leader of the party establishment he has antagonized so often. He has a real chance to extend his public service to the Oval Office and an abiding conviction that these perilous times require his leadership. But getting there in a year when so much is stacked against...
...first marriage had crumbled - he has admitted he was unfaithful - but he was remarried, to an Arizona beer heiress named Cindy Hensley, and the day in 1982 a Phoenix Congressman announced his retirement, she bought a house in his district. McCain was elected to the House as a Reagan Republican that year, but he already had his eye on the Senate. He easily moved up in 1986 after Barry Goldwater's retirement...
McCain has acknowledged misjudging Keating, but the dishonor and especially the casual allegations of corruption left him more outraged than ashamed. The episode soured him on partisanship - and in some ways on the Senate. "He got screwed, and he took it personally," says Slade Gorton, a former Republican Senator from Washington State. "That's what led to the whole McCain-Feingold thing." Says New Hampshire's Bob Smith, a former Republican Senator who tangled with McCain: "He did get shafted, and he never really got over it. I think he said, I'm on my own now." The Keating ordeal...
...relentless critic of congressional pork and has made a point of publicizing the pet-project earmarks that appropriators slip into budget bills. "He ruffles a lot of feathers because he doesn't worry about playing the game with the boys in the club," says Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican who has replaced McCain as the Senate's top porkbuster - and top headache. "I call him a crusty old fart. People say he's bullheaded, but he's never afraid to irritate people if it will get something done for his country...
...willing to bog down the Senate to try to stop pork, McCain stops short of drawing the line. He tends to bend institutions without breaking them; he never alienated his caucus enough to lose his chairmanship, and even Cochran has endorsed McCain's candidacy now that he's the Republican nominee. "McCain used to make great speeches about all the garbage in military spending bills, especially after 9/11, but he'd do nothing to stop it," says the Center for Defense Information's Winslow Wheeler, a former GOP staffer who supports Obama for President. McCain "got the porkbuster reputation...