Ask the journalists who loved him why they did, they will say: McCain loved to talk to them, he was FUN to talk to, you could ask him anything, he didn't observe his own party's PC or anyone else's, he was unpredictable, he had depth, he was larger than life, and no one ever...1
...ran a campaign like his in 2000 with the sort of openness, candor, patience and good humor they found on the "Straight Talk Express," as it was called. And all that is probably true. He was kind of a dream politician to cover. But there's another "fit" we should mention... 2
Reporters in the era when McCain flourished saw themselves as sitting between parties, creatures of neither, equal opportunity cynics, un-ideological, in possession of the most awesome crap-detectors in politics. They also loved him because he reflected this image back to them. 3
This isn't to say he WAS all those things. So don't @ me with the contradictions between this image and the real McCain. There were many. I'm simply making the point that the love affair was real, and like all such loves drew power from the illusion of self made into other. END
