2008 Presidential Election Coverage

 GOGO POLITICS

John McCain

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is an American politician, currently the Republican senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. He was a presidential candidate in the 2000 election, but was defeated by George W. Bush for the Republican nomination. On February 28, 2007, during a guest appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, McCain said he would be seeking the Republican Presidential nomination in the 2008 election, which he formally announced on April 25, 2007.

McCain was born in Coco Solo in the then American-controlled Panama Canal Zone to Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. and Roberta (Wright) McCain. Despite being born in a foreign country, his parents were both U.S. citizens and he acquired United States citizenship at birth, making him eligible for the Presidency. Both his father and grandfather were U.S. Navy admirals. His father commanded American forces in Vietnam while McCain was a prisoner of war. His grandfather John S. McCain, Sr. commanded naval aviation at the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. His mother is Roberta Wright (born 1912). He attended Episcopal High School and graduated in 1954. That autumn, McCain entered the United States Naval Academy, like his father and grandfather. He graduated in 1958.

In 1965, McCain married Carol Shepp, a model originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. McCain adopted his wife's two children Doug and Andy. He and Carol then had a daughter named Sydney. The couple were divorced on April 2, 1980.

After graduating from Annapolis, McCain trained as a naval aviator at Pensacola, Florida, and Corpus Christi, Texas. During a practice run in Corpus Christi, his aircraft crashed into Corpus Christi Bay, though he escaped without major injuries. Eventually he graduated and became a naval light attack pilot.

McCain was again almost killed during July 29, 1967. While Forrestal cruised off the coast of Vietnam with its crew preparing to launch attacks, a Zuni rocket from an F-4 Phantom was accidentally fired across the carrier's deck. The rocket struck McCain's A-4E Skyhawk as the jet was preparing for launch. The impact ruptured the Skyhawk's fuel tank, which ignited the fuel and knocked two bombs loose. McCain escaped from his jet by climbing out of the cockpit, working himself to the nose of the jet, and jumping off its refueling probe onto the burning deck of the aircraft carrier. Ninety seconds after the impact, one of the bombs exploded underneath his airplane. McCain was struck in the legs and chest by shrapnel. The ensuing fire killed 132 sailors, injured 62 others, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and threatened to sink the ship. A video of the incident has been made available by McCain's Presidential Exploratory Committee.

After the Forrestal incident, McCain joined the VA-163 Saints on board the short-staffed Oriskany. Before McCain's arrival, on October 26, 1966, a mishandled flare caused a deck fire, resulting in the death of 44 crew, including 24 pilots, and the Oriskany underwent significant repairs.

The Saints squadron and its parent Air Wing 16 suffered the greatest loss rate of any Navy flying unit during the entire Vietnam War. These heavy losses have been attributed to the perilous missions assigned to the squadron and the aggressiveness of its aviators.

On October 26, 1967, McCain's A-4 Skyhawk was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile, landing in North Vietnam's Truc Bach Lake, near Hanoi. McCain broke both arms and a leg after ejecting from his plane. After he regained consciousness, a mob gathered around him, spat on him, kicked him and stripped him of his clothing. He was then tortured by North Vietnamese soldiers, who crushed his shoulder with the butt of a rifle and bayoneted him in his left foot and abdominal area. He was then transported to the Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the "Hanoi Hilton".

Once McCain arrived at the prison, he was placed in a cell and interrogated daily. When he refused to provide any information to his captors, he was beaten until he lost consciousness.

When the North Vietnamese discovered his father was the Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command, (CINCPAC), commander of all U.S. forces in Vietnam, he was offered a chance to return home. McCain turned down the offer of repatriation due to his "first in, first out" mentality. He demonstrated that he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.

McCain signed an anti-American propaganda message as a result of rigorous torture methods, which to this day have left him incapable of raising his arms above his head. According to McCain, signing the propaganda message is something he most regrets during his time as a POW. After McCain signed the statement, the Vietnamese decided they could not use it. They tried to force him to sign a second statement, and this time he refused. He received two to three beatings per week because of his continued refusal.

McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years, mostly in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton", and was finally released from captivity in 1973, having been a POW for almost an extra five years due to his earlier refusal to accept an out-of-sequence repatriation offer. McCain was reinstated to flight status and became Commanding Officer of the VA-174 Hellrazors, the East Coast A-7 Corsair II Navy training squadron.

In 1976 he became the Navy's liaison to the Senate. He retired from the Navy in 1981 as a captain. During his military career, he received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Flying Cross.

McCain is one of five Vietnam veterans currently serving in the U.S. Senate; the others are Thomas Carper (D-DE), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), John Kerry (D-MA), and Jim Webb (D-VA).

A television film entitled Faith Of My Fathers, based on McCain's memoir of his experiences as a POW, aired on Memorial Day, 2005 on A&E.

In 1980, McCain married Cindy Hensley and moved to Phoenix. There he went to work for her father's Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship, where he gained political support among the local business community. When John Jacob Rhodes, the longtime Republican congressman from Arizona's 1st congressional district, announced his retirement, McCain ran for the seat as a Republican in 1982 and won. In 1986, upon Republican Senator Barry Goldwater's retirement, McCain was elected to succeed him.

In 1997, TIME named him as one of the "25 Most Influential People in America". His best-selling family memoir, Faith of My Fathers (1999), helped propel his presidential run. McCain skipped the Iowa caucus, focusing instead on the New Hampshire primary. In visits to towns he gave a ten-minute talk focused on campaign reform issues, then announced he would stay until he answered every question that everyone had. He made over 200 stops, talking in every town in New Hampshire in an example of "retail politics" that overcame Bush's famous name. He won by 49-30, and suddenly was the celebrity of the hour. Analysts predicted that a McCain victory in the crucial primary in South Carolina would give him unstoppable momentum. However, McCain lost South Carolina, allowing Bush to regain the momentum. Analysts attribute McCain's loss in South Carolina to Bush's mobilization of the state's evangelical voters. Each side made allegations of negative campaigning against the other. There was alleged to have been a push polling campaign by the Bush camp, in which telephone calls were made to conservative Republican voters in the so-called Deep South, allegedly to ask them whether they would support McCain if he had an illegitimate interracial daughter with a black woman. McCain in fact has an adopted daughter from Bangladesh. Accounts of this are covered in the books, Bush's Brain and Boy Genius. Additionally, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh entered the fray supporting Bush.

McCain publicly praised President Bush during the 2004 U.S. presidential election. He often praised Bush's management since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. McCain's reputation as a moderate appealed to many voters who found President Bush too conservative, and in the 2000 elections, many thought of Bush as the more conservative candidate and McCain as the more moderate candidate. In fact, according to Voteview.com, McCain's voting record in the 109th Congress was the third most conservative among senators. However, his voting record during the 107th Congress, from January 2001 through November 2002, placed him as the 6th most liberal Republican senator, according to the same analysis at voteview.com.

McCain's colleague, and also the 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee, John Kerry of Massachusetts, reportedly asked McCain to be his running mate.

McCain accused the "Swift Boat" campaign against Kerry of being "dishonest and dishonorable.

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