Mr McCain let his contempt for the younger man shine through, harrumphing, grimacing, smirking and goggling his eyes whenever Mr Obama got a chance to speak.
Having his father's work to finish, he also belonged emotionally with him in the nineteenth century, in a world of giants of the grand gesture, like Disraeli and Gladstone, who had the self-confidence to let the slightly loony inner man shine through the public mask.
A cubistic man, all blocks and angles; or maybe a metallic Lego man, shining in the joyous June sun.
But always, in those conversations, there were moments when the kindness, and generosity, and wisdom of the man shone through.
If Wood's book is, at times, a similarly slapdash trawl through some momentous times, the essential warmth and generous spirit of the man shines through regardless.
Yet as a comrade in arms, the man shines like a beacon: to the courageous, a guardian angel; to the craven, a holy terror.
Then Preminger is joined by Bill Barnes, his assistant-of-all-trades, who is an even-featured, good-looking young man, shining and clean, and who has a mild Southern accent, like Cooper's, and London-made shoes, like Preminger's.
Their ideas were, in his view, "utterly crude and unintelligent," but their character moved him: "The brotherhood of man is no mere phrase with them, but a fact of life, and the nobility of man shines upon us from their work-hardened bodies," he wrote in his so-called "Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844" (written in 1844; Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 [1959]).
Back to that man shining my shoes at no cost to me, God comes to us like that shoe shiner and says, "I can make this Church look brand new, let this be my gift to you, pay it forward".
And in such moments the men shine.
The men shine more than the women, but with 26 people on stage, this is a genuine ensemble.
