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Last night, upon hearing about the sale of the option, McCain said, "Well, maybe they can get Danny DeVito to play me," according to McCain spokesman Dan Schnur.

"But we're thinking more like Sean Connery," said Schnur.

The Hollywood backstory is interesting. Barry Diller is a supporter of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bill Bradley, and several USA Network executives have made contributions to Bradley's campaign. But McCain is also that rarity -- a GOP figure who is respected in Hollywood.

The book, published by Random House and co-written by McCain's Senate chief of staff Mark Salter, tells the story of McCain's grandfather, Adm. John "Slew" McCain, and father, Adm. John McCain, as well as the senator's own harrowing five-and-a-half-year experience as a POW at the "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War.

Salter and McCain have split profits from the book 50-50, with McCain's share going to charity. McCain, a longtime advocate of campaign finance reform, is said to think the money is not worth the accusations of hypocrisy he would no doubt suffer were he to profit from sales of the book or movie rights. Besides, as the son of Navy royalty, he has some money tucked away. (In addition, his wife is an executive of an extremely lucrative family-owned Anheiser-Busch distributor.)

Representatives from USA Network did not return calls to comment on the deal. In addition to manufacturing such cheese as "Baywatch," World Wrestling Federation's "RAW" and "Xena, Warrior Princess" -- as well as more respectable, middlebrow fare like "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit," "Wings" and "JAG" -- USA Network has been trying to produce more big-budget epics, like "Moby Dick," starring Patrick Stewart, and "Journey to the Center of the Earth," with Treat Williams. The last biopic USA brought to the small screen was "Breaking the Surface: The Greg Louganis Story."

Meanwhile, McCain tries to break the surface of the GOP voting public. A recent poll of New Hampshire voters shows McCain closing the gap -- a tad -- between himself and GOP front-runner Gov. George W. Bush. A Franklin Pierce College/WNDS-TV poll conducted between Oct. 3 and 6 had McCain registering as the first choice among 23 percent of likely Republican primary voters in that state, while Bush held fairly steady with 43 percent.

The poll was great news for McCain, who received only 10 percent in a similar poll in early September. It was so-so news for Bush, who sank 5 points from 48 percent, and even worse news for Elizabeth Dole, down from 10 percent to 7 percent.

Though he is spending the weekend off the campaign trail with his family in Arizona, McCain's TV campaign continues; he is scheduled to be interviewed on both "Fox News Sunday" and CBS's "Face the Nation" this Sunday, and "Dateline NBC" is scheduled to air a feature on McCain and his wife, Cindy, on Sunday evening.
salon.com | Oct. 8, 1999

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