Straight Talk Won't Fade Away

John McCain returned to the Senate last week and a cartoon in the newspaper told it best.

His trademark bus was seen pulling onto the Senate floor and one Senator whispered to another, "No, you tell him he can't drive it in here."

Yep, John McCain was back, wisecracking, playing to the tourists and, to the annoyance of some Senators, hundreds of reporters showed up to cover it, because - let's face it - Senate happenings have been fairly tedious lately.

Once the place of giants, most modern Senators get to Washington because they are experts at raising money, a valuable skill but not one that others necessarily find admirable or even interesting.

So with a few rare exceptions, the Senate has become a congregation of unknowns, men and women little recognized outside their home states who spend their weekends raising money and their week days making speeches that go largely unnoticed in an empty Senate chamber.

McCain was no more well-known than most of them when he left to run for President, but he found a huge following on the campaign trail and even though he lost, he returned a national figure.

His Republican colleagues never liked his maverick ways, so they gave him no more than a perfunctory welcome back.

But they all understand power, so they recognize that the millions of new people he got interested in politics give him new clout.

They know it and he knows they know it, so all sides will act accordingly - which means carefully.

But you do wonder if they yet recognize how much he changed the face of their party - and how much he probably helped them.