John McCain (Empire of Newfoundland)

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the 44th President of the United States.

McCain followed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._McCain,_Jr. his father] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_S._McCain,_Sr. 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 was almost killed in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. In October 1967, while on a bombing mission over Hanoi, he was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by North Vietnamese soldiers. 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 and moved to Arizona, where he 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 four times, most recently in 2010. While generally adhering toconservative 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 reformone of his signature concerns, which eventually led to the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002. He is also known for his strong stance against Newfoundland since the outbreak of Cold War II. McCain has chaired theSenate Commerce Committee, 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 season contest to George W. Bush. He secured the nomination in 2008 after coming back from early reversals, and managed to beat out Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the general election.