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Washington: He has returned to where he did not wish to return. Back to walking the spotted white marble corridors of the Russell Senate Office Building. Back to Room 241, which says "Senator John McCain - Arizona" on the door, and where a trickle of people stroll in on this morning in hopes of getting his pre-autographed photo and to inquire about obtaining tickets for Barack Obama's inauguration. Others stare. He has perfected his own middle-distance stare and the curt nod of someone coping.
He quietly enters the office a few minutes after 8am on this Wednesday, tightly smiles at a receptionist and, without a word to anyone, makes a hard left through a suite of his aides' offices that leads to his own. He is alone.
He walks now without so much as a single bodyguard, the Secret Service having disappeared when his dream of winning the presidency did, 15 days ago. It is a jarring reminder of just how much a defeated candidate's station changes in about two weeks.
Outside his office, just arriving, is a US Capitol policewoman, casually taking a seat. She is there in case the hordes of media and sightseers become too large, or something alarming happens. But the hordes are gone. "I might not be here much longer if this keeps up," she says.
There is nothing like a massive electoral loss to strip someone of great relevance in Washington. Historically, the gilded carriage of a presidential nominee returns to being a pumpkin almost the instant he loses. The leased campaign jet is returned to its owners, old allies snipe behind his back about his campaign's failings, his power base erodes, and he is written off as a remnant of his party's past.
A campaign for the Oval Office is an all-or-nothing venture, and friends of McCain, who chased the presidency for the better part of 10 years, wonder how he is faring after the fall. As resilient as the former prisoner of war and fighter pilot has always been, there may be no coming all the way back, at age 72, from this spiral.
And yet, while his ultimate quest is over for good, there has been no time to really decompress. He has been busy since election night, his schedule fuller than any defeated candidate's in modern history, including a talk show, a conciliatory appearance with Obama and a rush back to Washington.
"I don't think it's all really hit him; I don't see how it could have - I'd like him to get some R&R as soon as this is over," says a former aide.
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