John McCain in Decision Points, by Pres. George W. Bush

On Budget & Economy: OpEd: Financial crisis gave best chance for 2008 comeback

No question the economic trouble was hurting John. Our party controlled the White House, so we were the natural target of the finger-pointing. Yet I thought the financial crisis gave John his best chance to mount a comeback. In periods of crisis, voters value experience and judgment over youth and charisma. By handling the challenge in a statesmanlike way, John could make the case that he was the better candidate for the times.

When Obama finished, I turned to John McCain. He passed. I was puzzled. He had called for this meeting. I assumed he would come prepared to outline a way to get the bill passed. What had started as a drama quickly descended into a farce.

Toward the end of the meeting, John talked in general terms about the difficulty of the vote for Republican members and his hope that we could reach a consensus.

On Principles & Values: Bush: "I didn't campaign for McCain because he didn't ask"

The economy wasn't the only factor working against the Republican candidate. Like Dad in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996, McCain was on the wrong side of generational politics. At seventy-two, he was a decade older than I was and one of the oldest presidential nominees ever.

On War & Peace: 2007: No guarantee with surge; but no surge surely fails

McCain and I had a complex relationship. We had competed against each other in 2000, and we had disagreed on issues from tax cuts to Medicare reform to terrorist interrogation. Yet he had campaigned hard for me in 2004, and I knew he planned to run for president in 2008. The surge gave him a chance to create distance between us, but he didn't take it. He had been a longtime advocate of more troops in Iraq, and he supported the new strategy wholeheartedly. "I cannot guarantee success," he said. "But I can guarantee failure is we don't adopt this new strategy."