Will the real John McCain stand up

All through his career, first as a hero of the Vietnam war and then in Capitol Hill, John McCain has been a maverick, unafraid to stand up to those he opposed. But now, as the presidential race hots up, the Republican candidate is busy befriending those he once despised and ridiculed - the religious right, the gun lobby and the Iraq war hawks. So what kind of man is Barack Obama up against?

Ed Pilkington
The Guardian,

Ask any American what they know about John McCain and they will probably reply that he is a war hero who survived years of brutality in a Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. They might add that he is a maverick, free-thinking spirit who values independence and integrity above toeing the party line.

That is the Old John McCain, the one that has been written about in umpteen newspaper profiles, the one whose campaign bus is called the Straight Talk Express. But while all eyes have been on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, a new John McCain has been emerging. For the past 407 days, since he threw his hat into the presidential ring in April 2007, McCain has been criss-crossing the country, presenting an image of himself that runs counter to his long-standing reputation.

Take the recent event he attended in Louisville, Kentucky. You do not need deep knowledge of American cultural symbolism to guess which particular special interest he had come to scratch this day. A sign near the entrance of the Louisville convention centre said: "Shooters enter here." And then there were the guns; thousands of them. Thick ones, thin ones, long ones, short ones. Remingtons, Copperheads, Benjamin Sheridan, Glock and Ruger - all were on display - along with pump-action shotguns straight out of a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie.

It was into this bubbling broth of lethal weapons and reactionary politics - Oliver North was one of the guest speakers - that the senator for Arizona willingly threw himself. If Old John McCain had turned up to this annual convention of the National Rifle Association - one of America's most hard-core rightwing affiliations - the results could have been ugly. Old John McCain is loathed by the gun-toting right. After all, this was the man who proposed granting citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, and - which is worse? - did so hand in hand with that enemy of the nation, Ted Kennedy. The same man who accused televangelists such as the late Jerry Falwell of being "agents of intolerance". The candidate whom the NRA opposed when he last ran for president, in 2000, swinging its four million active members instead behind George Bush.

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