Pat Murphy

Pat Murphy, an editor at the Arizona Republic, became friends with

McCain in the early 1980s. As Murphy rose to become publisher of the

paper, their friendship continued.

In 1989, Murphy and his wife Betty had lunch with McCain in the Senate

dining room. They were talking about a hearing on a federal project to

build a dam system designed to deliver water from the Colorado River to

Arizona. Even though the project was supposed to be non-partisan, McCain

told Murphy he had planted highly technical questions with a member of

the Senate Appropriations Committee to ask when Rose Mofford, the

governor of Arizona, testified.

The idea was, because she was a Democrat, to make her squirm when she

did not know the answers.

Murphy was horrified and told McCain his feelings. After that, McCain

froze him out.

"What has struck me about McCain is that everybody underestimated the

ability of his advisers and him to hypnotize the national media, because

most of us in the media in Arizona thought of him as a guy who had a

terrible temper, occasionally had a foul mouth, a guy who whined and

pouted unless he got his way," Murphy said. "McCain has a temper that is

bombastic, volatile, and purple-faced. Sometimes he gets out of control.

Do you want somebody sitting in the White House with that kind of temper?'