John McCain is the most overexposed yet under-examined major figure in American politics. Dazzled by his biography, flattered by his attentions and unfazed by his failures, the national press corps has painted McCain as a preternatural straight talker, a politically unpredictable maverick whose heart is forever in the right place. As a partial result, voters are on the verge of choosing (or rejecting) a man who isn’t necessarily who they think he is. Matt Welch, editor in chief of Reason magazine and author of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, argues instead that the Arizona senator’s interventionist politics, at home and abroad, actually flow from the same single source: He wants to restore your faith in the federal government, and in the “greater cause” of American exceptionalism. Anything that jeopardizes that faith or sows public cynicism is a legitimate target of federal attention. Unfortunately, it’s the individual citizen–especially those who don’t necessarily agree with McCain’s militaristic conception of citizenship–who usually ends up suffering the consequences.