By Linda Maule,The Forecaster

YARMOUTH – Without fanfare, U.S. Sen. John McCain visited Maine Tuesday to have lunch in Yarmouth with his longtime friend and adviser Greg Stevens.

It wasn’t a big, public event, but it was huge to Yarmouth resident Stevens, and also to McCain, who said he values Stevens’ friendship.

Stevens said he has just finished six weeks of traveling five days a week to Boston for radiation treatment for brain cancer, and he will be undergoing a “very aggressive chemotherapy program.”

McCain, an Arizona Republican, has had two recurrences of skin cancer, in 1993 and 2000. “He is coming up to bless me,” Stevens said. “He’s coming up to be here at a tough time in my life, a critical time in my life. I couldn’t be too much more excited.”

McCain had already told him, Stevens said, “You’re going be OK, because I need you.'”

The men met during former Sen. Robert Dole’s 1996 campaign for president, when Stevens said he was called in to take over the advertising after three people had been fired.

Stevens, 57, is founder of Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm of Alexandria, Va. One of his best known ads, for the 1988 campaign of President George H.W. Bush, ridiculed former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis riding around in a military tank wearing a helmet.

During McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign, Stevens became his media adviser. Four other friends who worked in McCain’s campaign also came to see Stevens and his wife, Judi, on Tuesday at the Royal River Grill House.

One was Mark Salter, who has been McCain’s media adviser and co-authored several of McCain’s books, including newly released “Character Is Destiny,” which brought McCain to Cambridge, Mass., for a signing at the Harvard Book Store. From there, it was a short hop to Yarmouth.

McCain has made previous trips to Maine, to campaign for Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. He was also in Bath in 1994 for the christening of a ship named after his father and grandfather. Both had been admirals in the Navy, and both also were named John.

Stevens recalled McCain’s “explicit orders” to his campaign advisers in 2000 that everyone “would have a good time … a damn good time,” Stevens said as he pounded the table.

“These guys are the reason I lost,” McCain joked. “It wasn’t because of me.”

He said he wrote “Character Is Destiny” for parents to share with their children and for Americans of all ages to read for inspiration.

“Many people, young people, confuse celebrity status with courage or character,” McCain said.

He said he wrote the book not only because his publisher, Random House, asked him to, but also because he wanted to write about people whom young people “could look up to, and admire and emulate.”

When asked about the public’s growing concern about government scandals and the war in Iraq, McCain said, “There’s a lot of cynicism about government and the way we do business. The approval rating of Congress is at a low as people see scandals and corruptions going on. It’s time we made an effort to restore the faith of people in their government.”

McCain said he is optimistic that the federal investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff will get to the bottom of wrongdoing by lobbyists and some lawmakers.

McCain is chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs committee, and he has led a Congressional probe of Abramoff’s dealings with Indian tribes that hired him as a lobbyist. McCain said Michael Scanlon, a former Abramoff associate who previously was an aide to Republican Rep. Tom DeLay and pleaded guilty last month to conspiring to corrupt public officials and defraud Indian clients, “is cooperating” in the investigation. McCain said Abramoff “may turn,” too.

McCain, who hasn’t ruled out a campaign for president in 2008, appeared to go unnoticed by other diners as he sat with his friends at one end of the restaurant overlooking the Royal River, eating his fresh fish sandwich.

Linda Maule can be reached at 781-3661, ext. 108, or lmaule@theforecaster.net.

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