Who is John McCain? Like any candidate, he’s more than a resume. More than a Vietnam combat pilot who served time in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, then went on to be a longtime Republican senator from Arizona.

Over 60% of voters have been telling Rasmussen Reports that McCain is a conservative, and nearly half think he is Very Conservative. But then almost as many view his Democratic opponent Barack Obama as a political liberal, with again almost half that number describing him as Very Liberal.

Around half of voters believe McCain, despite his maverick reputation in Washington, will be the same as President Bush, although just as many suspect that the federal government will grow under an Obama administration.

In general, voters believe McCain is more likely to cut taxes and reduce the size of government than his Democratic opponent, but overall they are fairly evenly divided on which candidate will be better able to balance the federal budget and who will handle the economy better.

Nationally, the Rasmussen daily Presidential Tracking Poll showed Obama with a modest bounce after the Democratic National Convention last week, but that is already being blunted by the bounce McCain is starting to get from the ongoing Republican convention.

McCain’s proposal in early June to lift the ban on offshore oil drilling as one way to combat rising gas and oil prices is credited with keeping him competitive in the polls, but voters again are evenly divided on which candidate they most trust to handle the energy issue.

Voters see a stark difference between the two candidates on the subject, though. By substantial margins, they believe McCain’s top priority is finding new sources of energy while Obama is more focused on reducing the amount of energy we consume.

While Obama is trusted more by voters on the environment, Social Security, health care and education, McCain is consistently favored more when it comes to national security and the war in Iraq. Voters think the United States is far more likely to win the war if McCain is elected, while Obama is viewed by many more as the president who will bring the troops home as soon as possible.

The Democrat’s longtime advantage in this area is being hurt, however, by voters’ shifting views on Iraq as the war winds down. Just as confidence has grown that the United States and its allies are winning the war on terror, now voters are far less overwhelmingly in favor of bringing the troops home as a priority. Now nearly as many voters (42%) think winning the war is the most important goal in Iraq versus bringing the troops home (49%).

Still, voters rank economic issues as their number one concern this election cycle, with national security a distant second. Four years ago, national security was number one.

Perhaps most worrisome for Republicans is the jump in the past week in the number of voters (30%) who now think the 72-year-old McCain is too old to be president, coupled with a corresponding drop to 38% in the number who think Obama is too inexperienced for the job. It’s too early to say whether this is an extension of Obama’s bounce and whether the numbers will change after the GOP convention and Sarah Palin’s introduction into the mix.

But then voters also by five percentage points or more consistently rate McCain a better leader than Obama, and by similar margins view the Republican candidate as someone whose personal values are closer to their own.

It is perhaps understandable, too, that when asked about the fairness of U.S. society, voters see McCain and Obama, the first African-American presidential candidate of a major national party, as having widely divergent views. Around 70% of voters think the Republican views society as fair and decent versus 45% who believe that of the Democrat.

In mid-August, 46% expected Obama to win, as opposed to 28% who thought McCain would come out on top. One-in-five voters characterized the presidential campaign as boring. Now that the conventions are over and the vice presidential candidates are in play, those perceptions are likely to change.

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