Two failed presidential nominees, minus Secret Service detail or much suspense about their futures, back to the Senate - same as it ever was.
Explicitly or not, Kerry's backslap marked McCain's induction into an unofficial bipartisan caucus of would-be commanders in chief who fell short of the big prize and landed, humbled somewhat, back where they started.
As Kerry and other onetime presidential hopefuls know, a seat in the Senate is a comfy consolation. Aides screen your calls, Senate pages bring lunch, and at least 17 colleagues now serving know what it's like to take steps toward White House bids, only to be turned back.
Among them, only Kerry has walked as far down that road as McCain. The Massachusetts Democrat captured his party's presidential nomination in 2004, lost the general election, and returned to Washington stripped of all that had come with it.
McCain's pivot back to life as a senator was abrupt. Only 24 hours earlier, the Republican had been seated awkwardly next to President-elect Barack Obama at a bury-the-hatchet meeting, looking out again from a bubble of presidential-level security, surrounded by trappings of a life that might have been his.
McCain, meanwhile, is setting up a political action committee as a first step in running for a fifth term in the Senate.
A spokesperson said the 72-year-old senator decided with his senior advisers last night to set up the fund-raising PAC.
