Now it is starting to turn a little ugly. With the first primaries to eliminate the current array of Republican and Democratic presidential hopefuls less than three months away, any sense of summer breeziness in the campaigns is fast disappearing in place of a biting winter chill. 'Honest' John McCain, the Vietnam War hero turned Republican maverick, is among the first to suffer and is this week facing some real pressure. Until now, he has basked safely in the calm offered by the attention drawn to George W Bush, quietly scrubbing up his highly saleable reputation for moral courage and authority. The campaign leg-work is starting to pay off. In the state of New Hampshire, the site of one of the first major primaries on February 1 next year, a telephone poll by the respected Research 2000 revealed Mr Bush was favoured by 39 per cent of Republican voters ahead of Mr McCain's 27 per cent support base. The same poll in August saw Mr Bush's 45 per cent tower over Mr McCain's 10 per cent. But with the glory is coming some unwanted attention. Mr McCain is facing questioning in his home state of Arizona for an apparently legendary temper. Last week, he faced public complaints from Arizona's Republican governor over recent tantrums. Perhaps unwisely, Mr McCain shot back to suggest that the yarn was a Bush plant in The New York Times. Now the story has a life of its own. The Arizona Republic newspaper has published an editorial warning that he possesses a 'volcanic' rage, saying he 'often insults people and flies off the handle' and can be 'sarcastic and condescending'. Apparently getting its own back for years of such treatment, the paper announced it had 'reason to seriously question whether Mr McCain has the temperament, and the political approach and skills, we want in the next president of the United States'. It may not sound like Monica-gate, but it is still one to watch. With more than five years as a Hanoi prisoner-of-war, Mr McCain's character has been beyond question. In a highly patriotic nation, he is a hero. Significantly, he has always been portrayed as the tough, short, terrier-like outsider. The little previous criticism has homed in on his naivete - the too honest for Washington tag that has proved hard to shake. A touch of quiet anger has always bubbled just below the surface and has always been part of the appeal compared to his fellow bland smoothies on the hustings. It has given rise to respect for his willingness to speak his mind - a rarity among modern politicos - and impatience with many aspects of modern US politics. But some voters are already reportedly suspicious of a too militaristic president, and a hot temper does not sit well with the image of Commander-in-Chief. Furthermore, Americans generally like their presidents to appear healthy, cool and in control. President Bill Clinton is said to have a fearsome temper with a hair-trigger but generally he has kept it well out of the public eye. Just as Mr McCain has risen amid a scattered field of Republican candidates that still include billionaire publisher Steve Forbes and Christian conservative Gary Bauer, so has Bill Bradley started to give Vice-President Al Gore a fright on the Democratic side. Mr Bradley, a 1960s basketball star with the New York Knicks and then a senator, has enjoyed something of a longer honeymoon than Mr McCain, but now he too is facing scrutiny. Where Mr Bradley is facing potential problems is his Vietnam War record - a traditional bug-bear for many a candidate. A major investigation into his youth by the Washington Post published yesterday portrays a cautious, deep-thinking young man who avoided Vietnam through draft deferments while he was at Princeton and Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He then enlisted in officer-training at the Air Force Reserve, an uncommon move. At worst it seems to damn him with the faintest of praise, noting he took good advice from knowledgeable insiders. 'A close look at Bradley's choices then displays characteristics that recurred often in his public life: foresight, circumspection and skill at finding advantage while adhering strictly to the rules. 'And though he did not turn against the war until much later, he enlisted for an Air Force Reserve job that kept him away from the fight.' If front-runners Mr Gore and Mr Bush trip, it will be left possibly to Mr McCain and Mr Bradley to fight it out. The patriotic hot-head versus the plodding, placid achiever. It will be quite a battle. Greg Torode is the Post's Washington correspondent
