John McCain (SIADD)

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the oldest man elected to the office of the presidency, and the first president born outside of contiguous United States. McCain previously served as the senior United States Senator from Arizona from January 1987 until he resigned after his election to the presidency in November 2008.

McCain followed his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals, into the United States Navy, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958. He became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he nearly lost his life in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, badly injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. He was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture, and refused an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer. His war wounds left him with lifelong physical limitations.

He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981, moved to Arizona, and entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily in 1992, 1998, and 2004. While generally adhering to conservative principles, McCain at times has had a media reputation as a "maverick" for his willingness to disagree with his party on certain issues. After being investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as a member of the Keating Five, he made campaign finance reform one of his signature concerns, which eventually led to the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. He is also known for his work towards restoring diplomatic relations with Vietnam in the 1990s, and for his belief that the war in Iraq should be fought to a successful conclusion. McCain has chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, has opposed spending that he considered to be pork barrel, and played a key role in alleviating a crisis over judicial nominations.

McCain ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000, but lost a heated primary contest to George W. Bush. In 2008, after coming back from early reversals in the Republican Party presidential primaries, he secured his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Democratic nominee Barack Obama and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009.

As president, McCain signed economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 in December 2010. Other domestic policy initiatives include the Commercial Banking Stability and Security Act, the President Question Time Act of 2010 and the Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010.

McCain has announced on April 11, 2010 a Comprehensive Deficit Reduction Plan, in which he plans to cut $4 trillion over the next 12 years, with an annual deficit reduction by $300 billion, and to have a balanced federal budget with surplus by 2016.

In foreign policy, McCain's presidency has been dominated by the War in Afghanistan. On February 17, 2009 he announced a first troop surge of 24,000 additional U.S. troops, followed on October 30, 2009 by a second troop surge of 45,000 additional U.S. troops to counter the Taliban insurgency. He also oversaw the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by 2013, and launched a military campaign against al-Qaida in Yemen in 2010.

McCain also signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia on April 7, 2010, and ordered enforcement of the United Nations-sanctioned no-fly zone over Libya in March 2011. McCain also issued a direct order to a small group of American military forces to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

In April 2011, McCain declared his intention to seek re-election in the 2012 presidential election.