I think you are on to something, Abe. What’s more: I think John McCain is subtly trying to make the same point.

McCain left his youth behind at the Naval Academy. His current angst is not personal ( Who is he? Who were his mentors?) but policy-related. Will immigration reform undo him? Will the troop surge rescue America from military defeat and him from political oblivion? Obama is another story. Every week now brings a demonstration of the arrogance of youth that McCain left behind decades ago.

On his biographical tour McCain declared:

When I was a young man, I thought glory was the highest attainment, and all glory was self-glory. My parents had tried to teach me otherwise, as did the Naval Academy. But I didn’t understand the lesson until later in life, when I confronted challenges I never expected to face.

Although ostensibly speaking about himself, McCain could easily have been talking about his opponent. Obama perceives all that has come before him as corrupt, base, and, in his wife’s words, “mean.” Only an incredibly gifted, still-young man who has never faced real adversity, never managed a crisis, never fought in a war, and never championed a major piece of legislation could assume that his own innate judgment and character are superior to everyone else’s in public life. Obama runs on the presumption that he can revolutionize politics and make America anew. McCain offers a more modest profile, one which eschews just such presumption.