Mapes Recalls McCain's Temper

At his OregonLive blog, Way West of the Beltway, Oregonian reporter Jeff Mapes recalls his personal encounter with John McCain's infamous temper.

The Washington Post ran a front-page story Sunday devoted to McCain's temperament, starting with a shouting-and-shoving match McCain had with Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in early 1992.

Mapes remembered seeing "flashes of temper" when he covered McCain's appearance in Portland at a 1993 dinner for the Oregon Citizen's Alliance, an anti-gay group.

McCain was visiting Portland to speak at a political dinner, and he clearly wasn't happy to be doing it. Back in 1991, McCain had agreed to help out a small conservative group, the Oregon Citizens Alliance, which had decided not to run a third-party candidate against then-Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore.

In 1992, however, the OCA ran an anti-gay ballot measure that attracted national attention and turned even many Republicans away from the group. After McCain agreed to attend the 1993 fundraiser for the OCA, an Arizona newspaper columnist headlined it this way: "Hate group finds friend in McCain." Then-Sen. Mark O. Hatfield, R-Ore., encouraged McCain to back out, but McCain felt he couldn't.

In such a situation, many politicians would simply pour on the charm and the candor - smilingly telling reporters that this was an opportunity to encourage a conservative group to be open-hearted and tolerant.

McCain didn't do that.

Read the rest at Mapes' blog.