McCain seen as 'bare-knuckled fighter' who won't take no for answer

ByABC News
October 9, 2008, 12:46 AM

— -- John McCain had been home from a Vietnam prison less than three years when he was assigned to command the Navy's Replacement Air Group 174 in Jacksonville. The way he went about the job is similar to the way he's running his campaign and reacting to events on Wall Street 32 years later.

The unit of about 1,000 people was having trouble meeting its targets for training pilots, so McCain convened top managers and asked how to improve.

They said "Skipper, we're already doing all that can be done," Washington attorney Carl Smith says. "That was utterly unacceptable to John McCain. He basically fired several of those senior people. If they weren't going to deliver the results he wanted, he replaced them."

Smith, then 27 and a lieutenant, was one of two people McCain installed in posts meant for more senior officers. "He believed in letting capable people do the jobs regardless of their rank" or age, says Ross Fischer, another squadron member who now runs an air charter firm.

The McCain of today recently called for the firing of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, a former GOP congressman, and chose an untested running mate in Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, 44. He's easily recognizable as the boss Fischer describes from 1976: "He did not suffer fools. People who couldn't do the job didn't last long."

When McCain left, Smith says, "we had achieved our pilot training rate. We had sky-high morale and record levels of re-enlistment. We had a perfect safety record." But six months later, morale and re-enlistments were back to average, training lagged, and there was a fatal accident.

"There are great leaders who inspire great performances," Smith says. "He certainly did."

No Miss Congeniality

Relying heavily on his personality and history, McCain has led two presidential bids to unexpected success. As an insurgent in 2000, he gave favorite George W. Bush a stiff challenge.

This time around, McCain's campaign ran out of money in July 2007. He fired much of his staff, shrank the focus from national to New Hampshire and toughed his way to victory.