Ticket video chat: Matt Welch on 'McCain Myth of a Maverick' -- VI
In this episode of our ongoing conversation with author Matt Welch, he discusses the role of religion in Sen. John McCain's life and politics.
McCain's regrets about going too far in his 2000 remarks about the religious right, his courting of the religious right within the Republican Party this election season and the stark differences between the roles of Rev. Wright in Barack Obama's life and Rev. Hagee in the McCain campaign.
Previous chapters in our Welch chat about his book, "McCain: The Myth of a Maverick," are here for Part I, here for Part II, here for Part III, here for Part IV and here for Part V. Samples of Welch's print writing in his former Times career are available here.
The remaining two episodes of our conversation will be published on The Ticket in the next day or so.
--Andrew Malcolm
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Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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