Who is John McCain? Frank Rich Comes Back From Vacation With A Vengeance

Frank Rich is back from a vacation break. In his Sunday column today he makes the point that even though McCain is often viewed as the tried and true candidate and a less risky choice for president, Americans still don't seem to know much about him. 

Other than McCain's war record and his time spent as a POW, I'd have to agree that McCain's biography seems to need some shading in. It's understandable that McCain's campaign might be eager to gloss over less flattering points in his history, such as the Keating Five scandal and his divorce from his first wife (which McCain mentioned without much elaboration as his greatest personal moral failure at the Saddleback Church Forum yesterday). But other than McCain's more obvious low points, why don't Americans know or want to know more about him?

On the one hand, McCain might be reluctant to make the extent of he and his wife's enormous wealth and lavish lifestyle better known to average americans. Like George W. before him, McCain seems to want to play the angle of being known as a "regular guy" even though he really isn't. Since regular people don't own six homes and a private plane, keeping his private life under wraps seems to be a good idea...

What I don't understand is why Americans aren't demanding to know more about what McCain has been up to in the last thirty years since he was released as a POW and joined the world of politics in the 1970's. Is the perception of McCain as a tried and true candidate really deserved? If McCain's biography and political career isn't actually familiar to Americans, then what is it about him that makes him seem that way?