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 was a prominent supporter for the the United Nations-sanctioned no-fly zone over Libya in early 2011. On May 1, 2011, McCain announced that a small team of American military forces killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.

Formative years and education
John McCain was born on August 29, 1936 at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone, Panama, to naval officer John S. McCain, Jr. (1911–1981) and Roberta (Wright) McCain (b. 1912). At that time, the Panama Canal was under U.S. control.

McCain's family tree includes Scots-Irish and English ancestors. His father and his paternal grandfather, John S. McCain, Sr., both became four-star United States Navy admirals. His family, including his older sister Sandy and younger brother Joe, followed his father to various naval postings in the United States and the Pacific. Altogether, he attended about 20 schools.

In 1951, the family settled in Northern Virginia, and McCain attended Episcopal High School, a private preparatory boarding school in Alexandria. He excelled at wrestling and graduated in 1954.

Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, McCain entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. There, he was a friend and informal leader for many of his classmates, and sometimes stood up for targets of bullying. He also became a lightweight boxer. McCain came into conflict with higher-ranking personnel, he did not always obey the rules, and that contributed to a low class rank (894 of 899), despite a high IQ (McCain scored 128 and then 133 on IQ tests). He did well in academic subjects that interested him, such as literature and history, but studied only enough to pass subjects he struggled with, such as mathematics. McCain graduated in 1958.

Naval training and first marriage
John McCain's early military career began when he was commissioned an ensign. He spent two years as a naval aviator in training, first at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida through September 1959, and then at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas, during which time he was promoted to lieutenant, junior grade. He earned a reputation as a party man, as he drove a Corvette, dated an exotic dancer named "Marie the Flame of Florida", spent all his free time on the beach or in a Bachelor Officer Quarters room turned bar and friendly gambling den, and, as he later said, "generally misused my good health and youth". He began as a sub-par flier: he had limited patience for studying aviation manuals, and spent study time reading history books instead. He was not assigned to the elite units flying fighter aircraft, and instead became a pilot of attack aircraft.

He completed flight school in 1960, and became a naval pilot of ground-attack aircraft, assigned to A-1 Skyraider squadrons aboard the aircraft carriers USS Intrepid and USS Enterprise in the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas. McCain began as a sub-par flier who was at times careless and reckless; during the early-to-mid 1960s, the planes he was flying crashed twice and once collided with power lines, but he received no major injuries. His aviation skills improved over time, and he was seen as a good pilot, albeit one who tended to "push the envelope" in his flying.

On July 3, 1965, McCain married Carol Shepp, a model originally from Philadelphia. McCain adopted her two young children Douglas and Andrew. He and Carol then had a daughter named Sidney.

Vietnam assignment
In November 1965 McCain requested a combat assignment, and in October 1966, he was slated for upcoming Vietnam War duty. McCain, now 30 years old, was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in May 1967 flying A-4 Skyhawks. His combat duty began on July 25, 1967, when Forrestal was assigned to a bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder, the 1965–1968 air interdiction and strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam. The alpha strikes flown from Forrestal were against specific, pre-selected targets such as arms depots, factories, and bridges. They were quite dangerous, due to the strength of the North Vietnamese air defenses, which used Soviet-designed and -supplied surface-to-air missiles, anti-aircraft artillery, and MiG jet interceptors. McCain's first five attack missions over North Vietnam went without incident, and while still unconcerned with minor Navy regulations, McCain had garnered the reputation of a serious aviator. McCain and his fellow pilots became frustrated by micromanagement from Washington, and he would later write that "In all candor, we thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots who didn't have the least notion of what it took to win the war."

On July 29, 1967 McCain, by then a lieutenant commander, was near the center of the Forrestal fire. While the air wing was preparing to launch attacks, a Zuni rocket from an F-4 Phantom accidentally fired across the carrier's deck. The rocket struck either McCain's A-4E Skyhawk or one near it. The impact ruptured the Skyhawk's fuel tank, which ignited the fuel and knocked two bombs loose. He went to help another pilot trying to escape the fire when the first bomb exploded; McCain was thrown backwards ten feet (three meters) and suffered minor wounds when struck in the legs and chest by fragments. McCain helped crewmen throw unexploded bombs overboard off the hangar deck elevator. The ensuing fire killed 134 sailors and took 24 hours to control.

As Forrestal headed to port for repairs, McCain volunteered to join the undermanned VA-163 "Saints" squadron on board the USS Oriskany. This carrier had earlier endured its own deck fire disaster and its squadrons had suffered some of the heaviest losses during Rolling Thunder. The Saints had a reputation for aggressive, daring attacks, but paid the price: in 1967, one-third of their pilots were killed or captured, and all of their original fifteen A-4s had been destroyed. After taking some leave in Europe and back home in Orange Park, Florida, McCain joined Oriskany on September 30, 1967, for a tour he expected would finish early the next summer. He volunteered to fly the squadron's most dangerous missions right away, rather than work his way up to them. During October 1967, the pilots operated in constant twelve-hour on, twelve-hour off shifts. McCain would be awarded a Navy Commendation Medal for leading his air section through heavy enemy fire during an October 18 raid on the Lac Trai shipyard in Haiphong. On October 25, McCain successfully attacked the Phuc Yen airfield north of Hanoi through a barrage of anti-aircraft artillery and surface-to-air missile fire, which would garner him the Bronze Star. Air defenses around Hanoi were then the strongest they would be during the entire war.

Prisoner of war
John McCain's capture and subsequent imprisonment began on October 26, 1967. He was flying his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi. McCain fractured both arms and a leg ejecting from the aircraft, and nearly drowned when he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake. Some North Vietnamese pulled him ashore, then others crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt and bayoneted him. McCain was then transported to Hanoi's main Hoa Lo Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton".

Although McCain was badly wounded, his captors refused to treat his injuries, beating and interrogating him to get information; he was given medical care only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral. His status as a prisoner of war (POW) made the front pages of major newspapers.

McCain spent six weeks in the hospital while receiving marginal care. By then having lost 50 pounds (23 kg), in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white, McCain was sent to a different camp on the outskirts of Hanoi in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week. In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years.

In mid-1968, John S. McCain, Jr. was named commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater, and the North Vietnamese offered McCain early release because they wanted to appear merciful for propaganda purposes, and also to show other POWs that elite prisoners were willing to be treated preferentially. McCain turned down the offer; he would only accept repatriation if every man taken in before him was released as well. Such early release was prohibited by the POW's interpretation of the military Code of Conduct: To prevent the enemy from using prisoners for propaganda, officers were to agree to be released in the order in which they were captured.

In late August 1968, a program of vigorous torture methods began on McCain. The North Vietnamese used rope bindings to put him into prolonged, painful positions and severely beat him every two hours, all while he was suffering from dysentery. His right leg was reinjured, his ribs were cracked, some teeth were broken at the gumline, and his left arm was re-fractured. Lying in his own waste, his spirit was broken;[140] the beginnings of a suicide attempt were stopped by guards. After four days of this, McCain signed and taped an anti-American propaganda "confession" that said, in part, "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died, and the Vietnamese people saved my life, thanks to the doctors." He used stilted Communist jargon and ungrammatical language to signal that the statement was forced. McCain was haunted then and since with the belief that he had dishonored his country, his family, his comrades and himself by his statement, but as he later wrote, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine." Two weeks later his captors tried to force him to sign a second statement; his will to resist restored, he refused. He sometimes received two to three beatings per week because of his continued resistance; the sustained mistreatment went on for over a year. His refusals to cooperate, laced with loud obscenities directed towards his guards, were often heard by other POWs. His boxing experience from his Naval Academy days helped him withstand the battering, and the North Vietnamese did not break him again.

Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions" and propaganda statements. Many, especially among those who had been captured earlier and imprisoned longer, endured even worse treatment than McCain. Under extreme duress, virtually all the POWs eventually yielded something to their captors. There were momentary exceptions: on one occasion, a guard surreptitiously loosened McCain's painful rope bindings for a night; when, months later, the guard later saw McCain on Christmas Day, he stood next to McCain and silently drew a cross in the dirt with his foot. In October 1968, McCain's isolation was partly relieved when Ernest C. Brace was placed in the cell next to him; he taught Brace the tap code the prisoners used to communicate. On Christmas Eve 1968, a church service for the POWs was staged for photographers and film cameras; McCain defied North Vietnamese instructions to be quiet, speaking out details of his treatment then shouting "Fu-u-u-u-ck you, you son of a bitch!" and giving the finger whenever a camera was pointed at him. McCain refused to meet with various anti-Vietnam War peace groups coming to Hanoi, such as those led by David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, and Rennie Davis, not wanting to give either them or the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory based on his connection to his father. McCain was still badly hobbled by his injuries, earning the nickname "Crip" among the other POWs, but despite his physical condition, continued beatings and isolation, he was one of the key players in the Plantation's resistance efforts.

In May 1969, U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird began publicly questioning North Vietnamese treatment of U.S. prisoners. On June 5, 1969, a United Press International report described a Radio Hanoi broadcast that denied any such mistreatment. The broadcast used excerpts from McCain's forced "confession" of a year before, including a statement where he said he had bombed "cities, towns and villages" and had received "very good medical treatment" as a prisoner. In late 1969, treatment of McCain and the other POWs suddenly improved. North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh had died the previous month, possibly causing a change in policy towards POWs. Also, a badly beaten and weakened POW who had been released that summer disclosed to the world press the conditions to which they were being subjected, and the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, which included McCain's brother Joe, heightened awareness of the POWs' plight. In December 1969, McCain was transferred back to the Hoa Lo "Hanoi Hilton"; his solitary confinement ended in March 1970. When the prisoners talked about what they wanted to do once they got out, McCain said he wanted to become President. McCain consented to a January 1970 interview outside Hoa Lo with Spanish-born, Cuban psychologist Fernando Barral, that was published in the official Cuban newspaper Granma. McCain talked about his life and expressed no remorse for his bombing North Vietnam, and Barral proclaimed him "an insensitive individual without human depth." The POWs issued an edict forbidding any further such interviews, and despite pressure from his captors, McCain subsequently refused to see any anti-war groups or journalists sympathetic to the North Vietnamese regime.

McCain and other prisoners were moved around to different camps at times, but conditions over the next several years were generally more tolerable than they had been before. Unbeknownst to them, each year that Jack McCain was CINCPAC, he paid a Christmastime visit to the American troops in South Vietnam serving closest to the DMZ; he would stand alone and look north, to be as close to his son as he could get. By 1971, some 30–50 percent of the POWs had become disillusioned about the war, both because of the apparent lack of military progress and what they heard of the growing anti-war movement in the U.S., and some of them were less reluctant to make propaganda statements for the North Vietnamese. McCain was not among them: he participated in a defiant church service and led an effort to write letters home that only portrayed the camp in a negative light, and as a result spent much of the year in a camp reserved for "bad attitude" cases.

Back at the "Hanoi Hilton" from November 1971 onward, McCain and the other POWs cheered the resumed bombing of the north starting in April 1972, whose targets included the Hanoi area and whose daily orders were issued by Jack McCain, knowing his son was in the vicinity. Jack McCain's tour as CINCPAC ended in September 1972, despite his desire to have it extended so he could see the war to its conclusion. The old-time POWs cheered even more during the intense "Christmas Bombing" campaign of December 1972, when Hanoi was subjected for the first time to repeated B-52 Stratofortress raids. Although its explosions lit the night sky and shook the walls of the camp, scaring some of the newer POWs, most saw it as a forceful measure to compel North Vietnam to finally come to terms.

The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, ending direct U.S. involvement in the war, but the Operation Homecoming arrangements for the 591 American POWs took longer. McCain was finally released from captivity on March 14, 1973, being taken by bus to Gia Lam Airport, transferred to U.S. custody, and flown by C-141 to Clark Air Base in the Philippines.

Altogether, McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years, nearly five of them after his refusal to accept the out-of-sequence repatriation offer. His wartime injuries left him permanently incapable of raising either arm more than 80 degrees. For his actions as a POW, McCain was awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, three more instances of the Bronze Star, another instance of the Navy Commendation Medal, and the Purple Heart. He also gained an appreciation, from experiencing the mutual help and organized resistance of the POWs, that his earlier individualism needed to be tempered by a belief in causes greater than self-interest.

Commanding officer, liaison to senate, and second marriage
McCain's return to the United States reunited him with his family. His wife Carol had suffered her own crippling ordeal due to an automobile accident in December 1969. McCain became a celebrity of sorts, as a returned POW.

McCain underwent treatment for his injuries, including months of grueling physical therapy, and attended the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. during 1973–1974. Having been rehabilitated, by late 1974, McCain had his flight status reinstated, and in 1976 he became commanding officer of a training squadron stationed in Florida. He improved the unit's flight readiness and safety records, and won the squadron its first-ever Meritorious Unit Commendation. During this period in Florida, McCain had extramarital affairs, and the McCains' marriage began to falter, for which he later would accept blame.

McCain served as the Navy's liaison to the U.S. Senate beginning in 1977. In retrospect, he has said that this represented his "real entry into the world of politics and the beginning of my second career as a public servant." His key behind-the-scenes role gained congressional financing for a new supercarrier against the wishes of the Carter administration.

In April 1979, McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona, whose father had founded a large beer distributorship. They began dating, and he urged his wife Carol to grant him a divorce, which she did in February 1980, with the uncontested divorce taking effect in April 1980. The settlement included two houses, and financial support for her ongoing medical treatments due to her 1969 car accident; they would remain on good terms. McCain and Hensley were married on May 17, 1980, with Senators William Cohen and Gary Hart attending as groomsmen. McCain’s children did not attend, and several years would pass before they reconciled. John and Cindy McCain entered into a prenuptial agreement that kept most of her family's assets under her name; they would always keep their finances apart and file separate income tax returns.

McCain decided to leave the Navy. It was doubtful whether he would ever be promoted to the rank of full admiral, as he had poor annual physicals and had been given no major sea command. His chances of being promoted to rear admiral were better, but McCain declined that prospect, as he had already made plans to run for Congress and said he could "do more good there." McCain retired from the Navy on April 1, 1981 as a captain. He was designated as disabled and awarded a disability pension. Upon leaving the military, he moved to Arizona. His 17 military awards and decorations include the Silver Star, Legion of Merit, Distinguished Flying Cross, Bronze Star and Navy Commendation Medal, for actions before, during, and after his time as a POW.

U.S. Congressman
McCain set his sights on becoming a Congressman because he was interested in current events, was ready for a new challenge, and had developed political ambitions during his time as Senate liaison. Living in Phoenix, he went to work for Hensley & Co., his new father-in-law Jim Hensley's large Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship. As Vice President of Public Relations at the distributorship, he gained political support among the local business community, meeting powerful figures such as banker Charles Keating, Jr., real estate developer Fife Symington III and newspaper publisher Darrow "Duke" Tully. In 1982, McCain ran as a Republican for an open seat in Arizona's 1st congressional district. A newcomer to the state, McCain was hit with repeated charges of being a carpetbagger. McCain responded to a voter making that charge with what a Phoenix Gazette columnist would later describe as "the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I've ever heard":

Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi.

With the assistance of local political endorsements, his Washington connections, as well as money that his wife lent to his campaign, McCain won a highly contested primary election. He then easily won the general election in the heavily Republican district.

In 1983, McCain was elected to lead the incoming group of Republican representatives, and was assigned to the House Committee on Interior Affairs. Also that year, he opposed creation of a federal Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, but admitted in 2008: "I was wrong and eventually realized that, in time to give full support [in 1990] for a state holiday in Arizona."

McCain's politics at this point were mainly in line with President Ronald Reagan, including support for Reaganomics, and he was active on Indian Affairs bills. He supported most aspects of the foreign policy of the Reagan administration, including its hardline stance against the Soviet Union and policy towards Central American conflicts, such as backing the Contras in Nicaragua. McCain opposed keeping U.S. Marines deployed in Lebanon citing unattainable objectives, and subsequently criticized President Reagan for pulling out the troops too late; in the interim, the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing killed hundreds. McCain won re-election to the House easily in 1984, and gained a spot on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In 1985, he made his first return trip to Vietnam, and also traveled to Chile where he met with its military junta ruler, General Augusto Pinochet.

Growing family
In 1984 McCain and his wife Cindy had their first child together, daughter Meghan. She was followed two years later by son John Sidney McCain IV (known as Jack), and in 1988 by son James (Jimmy). In 1991, Cindy McCain brought an abandoned three-month old girl needing medical treatment to the U.S. from a Bangladeshi orphanage run by Mother Teresa. The McCains decided to adopt her, and named her Bridget.

First two terms in U.S. Senate
McCain's Senate career began in January 1987, after he defeated his Democratic opponent, former state legislator Richard Kimball, by 20 percentage points in the 1986 election. McCain succeeded longtime American conservative icon and Arizona fixture Barry Goldwater upon the latter's retirement as United States Senator from Arizona. Senator McCain became a member of the Armed Services Committee, with which he had formerly done his Navy liaison work; he also joined the Commerce Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee. McCain continued to support the Native American agenda. As first a House member and then a senator – and as a life-long gambler with close ties to the gambling industry – McCain was one of the main authors of the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which codified rules regarding Native American gambling enterprises. McCain was also a strong supporter of the Gramm-Rudman legislation that enforced automatic spending cuts in the case of budget deficits.

McCain soon gained national visibility. He delivered a well-received speech at the 1988 Republican National Convention, was mentioned by the press as a short list vice-presidential running mate for Republican nominee George H. W. Bush, and was named chairman of Veterans for Bush.

McCain became enmeshed in a scandal during the 1980s as one of five United States Senators comprising the so-called Keating Five. Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in lawful political contributions from Charles Keating Jr. and his associates at Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, along with trips on Keating's jets that McCain belatedly repaid in 1989. In 1987, McCain was one of the five senators whom Keating contacted in order to prevent the government's seizure of Lincoln, and McCain met twice with federal regulators to discuss the government's investigation of Lincoln. In 1999, McCain said: "The appearance of it was wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do." In the end, McCain was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee of acting improperly or violating any law or Senate rule, but was mildly rebuked for exercising "poor judgment". In his 1992 re-election bid, the Keating Five affair was not a major issue, and he won handily, gaining 56 percent of the vote to defeat Democratic community and civil rights activist Claire Sargent and independent former Governor Evan Mecham.

McCain developed a reputation for independence during the 1990s. He took pride in challenging party leadership and establishment forces, becoming difficult to categorize politically.

As a member of the 1991–1993 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, chaired by Democrat and fellow Vietnam War veteran John Kerry, McCain investigated the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue, to determine the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War. The committee's unanimous report stated there was "no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia." Helped by McCain's efforts, in 1995 the U.S. normalized diplomatic relations with Vietnam. McCain was vilified by some POW/MIA activists who, unlike the Arizona senator, believed large numbers of Americans were still held against their will in Southeast Asia. Since January 1993, McCain has been Chairman of the International Republican Institute, an organization partly funded by the U.S. Government that supports the emergence of political democracy worldwide.

In 1993 and 1994, McCain voted to confirm President Clinton's nominees Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg whom he considered to be qualified for the U.S. Supreme Court. He would later explain that "under our Constitution, it is the president's call to make." McCain had also voted to confirm nominees of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, including Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

McCain attacked what he saw as the corrupting influence of large political contributions – from corporations, labor unions, other organizations, and wealthy individuals – and he made this his signature issue. Starting in 1994, he worked with Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform; their McCain-Feingold bill attempted to put limits on "soft money". The efforts of McCain and Feingold were opposed by some of the moneyed interests targeted, by incumbents in both parties, by those who felt spending limits impinged on free political speech and might be unconstitutional as well, and by those who wanted to counterbalance the power of what they saw as media bias. Despite sympathetic coverage in the media, initial versions of the McCain-Feingold Act were filibustered and never came to a vote.

The term "maverick Republican" became a label frequently applied to McCain, and he has also used it himself. In 1993, McCain opposed military operations in Somalia. Another target of his was pork barrel spending by Congress, and he actively supported the Line Item Veto Act of 1996, which gave the president power to veto individual spending items but was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1998.

In the 1996 presidential election, McCain was again on the short list of possible vice-presidential picks, this time for Republican nominee Bob Dole. The following year, Time magazine named McCain as one of the "25 Most Influential People in America".

In 1997, McCain became chairman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee; he was criticized for accepting funds from corporations and businesses under the committee's purview, but in response said the small contributions he received were not part of the big-money nature of the campaign finance problem. McCain took on the tobacco industry in 1998, proposing legislation that would increase cigarette taxes in order to fund anti-smoking campaigns, discourage teenage smokers, increase money for health research studies, and help states pay for smoking-related health care costs. Supported by the Clinton administration but opposed by the industry and most Republicans, the bill failed to gain cloture.

Start of third term in the U.S. Senate
McCain easily won re-election to a third senate term in November 1998, gaining 69 percent of the vote to 27 percent for his Democratic opponent, environmental lawyer Ed Ranger. Ranger was a motorcycle enthusiast and political novice who had only recently returned from Mexico. McCain carried Democratic stronghold Apache County by 54–42 percent and won Hispanic votes statewide by 52–42 percent. McCain took no "soft money" during the campaign, but still raised $4.4 million for his bid, explaining that he had needed it in case the tobacco companies or other Washington special interests mounted a strong effort against him. One of Ranger's campaigning points had been that McCain was really more interested in running for president; McCain indeed created a presidential exploratory committee the following month.

McCain had been uncomfortable and largely silent during the 1998 Lewinsky scandal, partly because his own personal life had not been without blemishes, and partly because his upcoming presidential nomination run restricted his political options. During the early 1999 Impeachment of Bill Clinton, McCain voted to convict the president on both the perjury and obstruction of justice counts. In his remarks on the Senate floor, McCain said:

All of my life, I have been instructed never to swear an oath to my country in vain. In my former profession, those who violated their sworn oath were punished severely and considered outcasts from our society. I do not hold the President to the same standard that I hold military officers to. I hold him to a higher standard. Although I may admit to failures in my private life, I have at all times, and to the best of my ability, kept faith with every oath I have ever sworn to this country. I have known some men who kept that faith at the cost of their lives. I cannot — not in deference to public opinion, or for political considerations, or for the sake of comity and friendship — I cannot agree to expect less from the President.

During 1999, the McCain-Feingold Act once again came up for consideration, this time with soft money prohibition features in but the issue ads provision out. McConnell challenged McCain to name specific senators who had been corrupted by existing campaign finance practices, but McCain refused. In the end, the same failure to gain cloture befell the legislation again. During that year, McCain shared the Profile in Courage Award with Feingold for their work in trying to enact this campaign finance reform; McCain was cited for opposing his own party on the bill at a time when he was trying to win the party's presidential nomination. Indeed, by April 1999 aspects of McCain's 2000 presidential campaign were underway, and his stance regarding the Kosovo War and other issues would take place in that context.

In March 1999, McCain voted in favor of approval for the NATO bombing campaign against Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, saying "Atrocities are the signature of the Serbian Army. They've been carrying out atrocities since 1992. We must not permit the genocide that Milosevic has in mind for Kosovo to continue. We are at a critical hour." He also criticized past Clinton administration inaction. Later in 1999, McCain shared the Profile in Courage Award with Feingold for their work in trying to enact their campaign finance reform, although the bill was still failing repeated attempts to gain cloture.

In August 1999, McCain's memoir Faith of My Fathers, co-authored with Mark Salter, was published; a reviewer observed that its appearance "seems to have been timed to the unfolding Presidential campaign." The most successful of his writings, it received positive reviews, became a bestseller, and was later made into a TV film. The book traces McCain's family background and childhood, covers his time at Annapolis and his service before and during the Vietnam War, concluding with his release from captivity in 1973. According to one reviewer, it describes "the kind of challenges that most of us can barely imagine. It's a fascinating history of a remarkable military family."

Remainder of third Senate term
McCain began 2001 by breaking with the new George W. Bush administration on a number of matters, including HMO reform, climate change, and gun legislation; McCain-Feingold was opposed by Bush as well. In May 2001, McCain was one of only two Senate Republicans to vote against the Bush tax cuts. Besides the differences with Bush on ideological grounds, there was considerable antagonism between the two remaining from the previous year's campaign. Later, when Republican Senator Jim Jeffords became an Independent, throwing control of the Senate to the Democrats, McCain defended Jeffords against "self-appointed enforcers of party loyalty". Indeed, there was speculation at the time, and in years since, about McCain himself leaving the Republican Party, but McCain has always adamantly denied that he ever considered doing so. Beginning in 2001, McCain used political capital gained from his presidential run, as well as improved legislative skills and relationships with other members, to become one of the Senate's most influential members.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, McCain supported Bush and the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. He and then-Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman wrote the legislation that created the 9/11 Commission, while he and Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings co-sponsored the Aviation and Transportation Security Act that federalized airport security.

In March 2002, McCain-Feingold passed in both Houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Bush. Seven years in the making, it was McCain's greatest legislative achievement.

Meanwhile, in discussions over proposed U.S. action against Iraq, McCain was a strong supporter of the Bush administration's position. He stated that Iraq was "a clear and present danger to the United States of America", and voted accordingly for the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002. He predicted that U.S. forces would be treated as liberators by a large number of the Iraqi people. In May 2003, McCain voted against the second round of Bush tax cuts, saying it was unwise at a time of war. By November 2003, after a trip to Iraq, he was publicly questioning Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, saying that more U.S. troops were needed; the following year, McCain announced that he had lost confidence in Rumsfeld.

In October 2003, McCain and Lieberman co-sponsored the Climate Stewardship Act that would have introduced a cap and trade system aimed at returning greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels; the bill was defeated with 55 votes to 43 in the Senate. They reintroduced modified versions of the Act two additional times, most recently in January 2007 with the co-sponsorship of Barack Obama, among others.

In the 2004 U.S. presidential election campaign, McCain was once again frequently mentioned for the vice-presidential slot, only this time as part of the Democratic ticket under nominee John Kerry. McCain said that Kerry had never formally offered him the position and that he would not have accepted it if he had. At the 2004 Republican National Convention, McCain supported Bush for re-election, praising Bush's management of the War on Terror since the September 11 attacks. At the same time, the Senator defended Kerry's Vietnam war record. By August 2004, McCain had the best favorable-to-unfavorable rating (55 percent to 19 percent) of any national politician; he campaigned for Bush much more than he had four years previously, though the two remained situational allies rather than friends.

McCain was also up for re-election as Senator in 2004. He defeated little-known Democratic schoolteacher Stuart Starky with his biggest margin of victory, garnering 77 percent of the vote.

Start of fourth Senate term
In May 2005, McCain led the so-called "Gang of 14" in the Senate, which established a compromise that preserved the ability of senators to filibuster judicial nominees, but only in "extraordinary circumstances". The compromise took the steam out of the filibuster movement, but some Republicans remained disappointed that the compromise did not eliminate filibusters of judicial nominees in all circumstances. McCain subsequently cast Supreme Court confirmation votes in favor of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, calling them "two of the finest justices ever appointed to the United States Supreme Court."

Breaking from his 2001 and 2003 votes, McCain supported the Bush tax cut extension in May 2006, saying not to do so would amount to a tax increase. Working with Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, McCain was a strong proponent of comprehensive immigration reform, which would involve legalization, guest worker programs, and border enforcement components. The Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act was never voted on in 2005, while the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 passed the Senate in May 2006 but failed in the House. In June 2007, President Bush, McCain, and others made the strongest push yet for such a bill, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, but it aroused intense grassroots opposition among talk radio listeners and others, some of whom furiously characterized the proposal as an "amnesty" program, and the bill twice failed to gain cloture in the Senate.

By the mid-2000s, the increased Indian gaming that McCain had helped bring about was a $23 billion industry. He was twice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, in 1995–1997 and 2005–2007, and his Committee helped expose the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal By 2005 and 2006, McCain was pushing for amendments to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that would limit creation of off-reservation casinos, as well as limiting the movement of tribes across state lines to build casinos.

Owing to his time as a POW, McCain has been recognized for his sensitivity to the detention and interrogation of detainees in the War on Terror. In October 2005, McCain introduced the McCain Detainee Amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill for 2005, and the Senate voted 90–9 to support the amendment. It prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, by confining military interrogations to the techniques in the U.S. Army Field Manual on Interrogation. Although Bush had threatened to veto the bill if McCain's amendment was included, the President announced in December 2005 that he accepted McCain's terms and would "make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad". This stance, among others, led to McCain being named by Time magazine in 2006 as one of America's 10 Best Senators. McCain voted in February 2008 for a bill containing a ban on waterboarding, which provision was later narrowly passed and vetoed by Bush. However, the bill in question contained other provisions to which McCain objected, and his spokesman stated: "This was a hard vote for Senator McCain, but said that he must hold his ground against waterboarding."

Meanwhile, McCain continued questioning the progress of the war in Iraq. In September 2005, he remarked upon Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers' optimistic outlook on the war's progress: "Things have not gone as well as we had planned or expected, nor as we were told by you, General Myers." In August 2006, he criticized the administration for continually understating the effectiveness of the insurgency: "We [have] not told the American people how tough and difficult this could be." From the beginning, McCain strongly supported the Iraq troop surge of 2007. The strategy's opponents labeled it "McCain's plan" and University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato said, "McCain owns Iraq just as much as Bush does now." The surge and the war were unpopular during most of the year, even within the Republican Party, as McCain's presidential campaign was underway; faced with the consequences, McCain frequently responded, "I would much rather lose a campaign than a war." In March 2008, McCain credited the surge strategy with reducing violence in Iraq, as he made his eighth trip to that country since the war began.

2000 presidential campaign
McCain formally announced his candidacy for President of the United States on September 27, 1999 before a thousand people in Greeley Park in Nashua, New Hampshire, saying he was staging "a fight to take our government back from the power brokers and special interests, and return it to the people and the noble cause of freedom it was created to serve". The leader for the Republican nomination was Texas Governor George W. Bush, who had the political and financial support of most of the party establishment.

McCain portrayed himself as a political maverick, capitalizing on a message of political reform and "straight talk" that appealed to moderate Republican and independent voters and to the press. He focused on the New Hampshire primary, where his message appealed to independents. He traveled on a campaign bus called the Straight Talk Express. He held many town hall meetings, answering every question voters asked, in a successful example of "retail politics", and he used free media to compensate for his lack of funds. One reporter later recounted that, "McCain talked all day long with reporters on his Straight Talk Express bus; he talked so much that sometimes he said things that he shouldn't have, and that's why the media loved him." On February 1, 2000, he won New Hampshire's primary with 49 percent of the vote to Bush's 30 percent. The Bush campaign and the Republican establishment feared that a McCain victory in the crucial South Carolina primary might give his campaign unstoppable momentum.

The Arizona Republic would write that the McCain–Bush primary contest in South Carolina "has entered national political lore as a low-water mark in presidential campaigns", while The New York Times called it "a painful symbol of the brutality of American politics". A variety of interest groups that McCain had challenged in the past ran negative ads. Bush borrowed McCain's earlier language of reform, and declined to dissociate himself from a veterans activist who accused McCain (in Bush's presence) of having "abandoned the veterans" on POW/MIA and Agent Orange issues.

Incensed, McCain ran ads accusing Bush of lying and comparing the governor to Bill Clinton, which Bush said was "about as low a blow as you can give in a Republican primary". An anonymous smear campaign began against McCain, delivered by push polls, faxes, e-mails, flyers, and audience plants. The smears claimed that McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock (the McCains' dark-skinned daughter was adopted from Bangladesh), that his wife Cindy was a drug addict, that he was a homosexual, and that he was a "Manchurian Candidate" who was either a traitor or mentally unstable from his North Vietnam POW days. The Bush campaign strongly denied any involvement with the attacks.

McCain lost South Carolina on February 19, with 42 percent of the vote to Bush's 53 percent, in part because Bush mobilized the state's evangelical voters and outspent McCain. The win allowed Bush to regain lost momentum. McCain would say of the rumor spreaders, "I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those." According to one report, the South Carolina experience left McCain in a "very dark place".

McCain's campaign never completely recovered from his South Carolina defeat, although he did rebound partially by winning in Arizona and Michigan a few days later. He made a speech in Virginia Beach that criticized Christian leaders, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, as divisive conservatives,[135] declaring "... we embrace the fine members of the religious conservative community. But that does not mean that we will pander to their self-appointed leaders." McCain lost the Virginia primary on February 29, and on March 7 lost nine of the thirteen primaries on Super Tuesday to Bush. With little hope of overcoming Bush's delegate lead, McCain withdrew from the race on March 9, 2000. He endorsed Bush two months later, and made occasional appearances with the Texas governor during the general election campaign.

2008 presidential campaign

 * Main article: United States presidential election of 2008

On April 25, 2007, John McCain formally announced his candidacy for President of the United States in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He stated that: "I'm not running for President to be somebody, but to do something; to do the hard but necessary things not the easy and needless things."

McCain's oft-cited strengths as a presidential candidate for 2008 included national name recognition, sponsorship of major lobbying and campaign finance reform initiatives, his well-known military service and experience as a POW, his experience from the 2000 presidential campaign, and an expectation that he would capture Bush's top fundraisers.

McCain had fundraising problems in the first half of 2007, due in part to his support for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which was unpopular among the Republican base electorate. Large-scale campaign staff downsizing took place in early July, but McCain said that he was not considering dropping out of the race. Later that month, the candidate's campaign manager and campaign chief strategist both departed. McCain slumped badly in national polls, often running third or fourth with 15 percent or less support.

The Arizona senator subsequently resumed his familiar position as a political underdog, riding the Straight Talk Express and taking advantage of free media such as debates and sponsored events. By December 2007, the Republican race was unsettled, with none of the top-tier candidates dominating the race and all of them possessing major vulnerabilities with different elements of the Republican base electorate. McCain was showing a resurgence, in particular with renewed strength in New Hampshire – the scene of his 2000 triumph – and was bolstered further by the endorsements of The Boston Globe, the New Hampshire Union Leader, and almost two dozen other state newspapers, as well as from Independent Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman. McCain decided not to campaign significantly in the January 3, 2008, Iowa caucuses, which saw a win by former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee.

McCain's comeback plan paid off when he won the New Hampshire primary on January 8, defeating former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney in a close contest, to once again become one of the front-runners in the race. On February 5, McCain won both the majority of states and delegates in the Super Tuesday Republican primaries, giving him a commanding lead toward the Republican nomination. Romney departed from the race on February 7. McCain's wins in the March 4 primaries clinched a majority of the delegates, and he became the presumptive Republican nominee.

Upon clinching enough delegates for the nomination, McCain's focus shifted toward the general election, while Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton fought a prolonged battle for the Democratic nomination. McCain introduced various policy proposals, and sought to improve his fundraising. Cindy McCain, who accounts for most of the couple's wealth with an estimated net worth of $100 million, made part of her tax returns public in May. After facing criticism about lobbyists on staff, the McCain campaign issued new rules in May 2008 to avoid conflicts of interest, causing five top aides to leave.

When Obama became the Democrats' presumptive nominee in early June, McCain proposed joint town hall meetings, but Obama instead requested more traditional debates for the fall. In July, a staff shake-up put Steve Schmidt in full operational control of the McCain campaign. Throughout these summer months, Obama typically led McCain in national polls by single-digit margins, and also led in several key swing states. McCain reprised his familiar underdog role, which was due at least in part to the overall challenges Republicans faced in the election year. McCain accepted public financing for the general election campaign, and the restrictions that go with it, while criticizing his Democratic opponent for becoming the first major party candidate to opt out of such financing for the general election since the system was implemented in 1976. The Republican's broad campaign theme focused on his experience and ability to lead, compared to Obama's.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was revealed as McCain's choice for running mate on August 29, 2008. On September 3, 2008, McCain and Pawlenty became the Republican Party's Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees, respectively, at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Although the Pawlenty pick did not energize core Republican voters as fast following the convention as expected, the pick had secured some of the conservative voters who had previously been wary of him and a growing number of independent voters.

On September 24, McCain said he was suspending his campaign, called on Obama to join him, and proposed delaying the first of the general election debates with Obama, in order to work on the proposed U.S. financial system bailout before Congress, which was targeted at addressing the subprime mortgage crisis and liquidity crisis. McCain's intervention helped to give dissatisfied House Republicans an opportunity to propose changes to the plan that was otherwise close to agreement. After Obama declined McCain's suspension suggestion, McCain went ahead with the debate on September 26. On October 1, McCain voted in favor of a revised $700 billion rescue plan.

On October 2, the McCain Campaign announced that they would change their campaign strategy. Seeing that the negative advertisements against Obama had not presented any positive results, and was still trailing Obama, he would once again assume his familiar position as a political underdog, riding the Straight Talk Express and taking advantage of free media such as debates and sponsored events. Likewise he barred using the Jeremiah Wright controversy in ads against Obama, and he announced that he would as well bar the use of the purported relationship with Bill Ayers. He announced that he would instead focus on his own policies on national security, education reform, energy independence, the economy as well as fiscal responsibility and cuts in federal and pork barrel pending. He would also focus on counter attacks of being too close to the unpopular President Bush by presenting his bipartisan positions in the Senate, saying he would work closely with both Republicans and Democrats while in office.

While certain Republicans begged McCain to go on the offensive against Obama, McCain would renounce this, saying that "The American people deserves that we debate the issues, and not turn to personal attacks". By October 20, McCain rose on the polls while Obama's support had declined throughout the last weeks. As a result, the Obama campaign made a negative turn and launched a series of advertisements blasting McCain and Pawlenty. By November 1, the polls showed that McCain and Obama were dead even in the polls in battleground states of Indiana, Ohio, Pensylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and New Hampshire.

On November 4, 2008, McCain won the presidency with 281 electoral votes to 257 received by Obama, carrying the swing states of Ohio, Pensylvania and Florida. McCain won 50.2% of the popular vote to Obama's 49.1%. He became the oldest person to be elected president. McCain delivered his victory speech before thousands of supporters in Phoenix, Arizona.

2012 presidential campaign
On April 20, 2011, McCain announced his re-election campaign for 2012 at a White House press conference. He filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission on the same day.

Presidency

 * See also: Presidency of John McCain
 * See also: Timeline of the Presidency of John McCain

Inauguration


The inauguration of John McCain as the 44th President, and Sarah Palin as the 47th Vice President, took place on January 20, 2009. He officially assumed the presidency at 12:00 noon, EST, and completed the oath of office at 12:05 P.M., EST. He delivered his inaugural address immediately following his oath, whose theme was "In the Right Direction", or one different version of it "In a Different Direction", commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

In his inagural address, he called upon all Americans of all faiths and political orientation to come together and help the United States solve its challenges. He also called on restoring responsibility — both in terms of accountability in Washington and the responsibility of ordinary people to get involved and finding a purpose greater than oneself.

''Now is the time to come together, Republicans and Democrats - and Independents. We are all united in solving our nation's challenges. We are all united through those values we all share — honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, loyalty, patriotism and service. They have been the quiet force of success throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world — duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task through service to our nation. My fellow American's today we stand in defence of our values and freedoms and to show that on this day we began to show our commitment to this great nation.'

First days
In his first few days in office, McCain would regurarily meet with both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C., for talks about the economy and to cement bipartisan support for a new stimulus package named "Straight Forward". McCain also issued executive orders and presidential memoranda directing the U.S. military and civilian agencies to revising the strategy in Afghanistan, reduce government spending and reduced the secrecy given to presidential records.

On January 21, his first day in office, McCain requested a 120-day suspension of all trials for alleged terrorists held at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, so the new administration could "review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases currently pending before military commissions, specifically". Another order established a task force to lead a review of detention policies, procedures and individual cases. McCain addressed the State Department that "the United States will not torture" and drafted an executive order to close Guantánamo as fast as possible, with a final deadline by 2013.

McCain also announced stricter guidelines regarding lobbyists in an effort to raise the ethical standards of the White House. The new policy banned aides from attempting to influence the administration for at least two years if they leave his staff. It also bans aides on staff from working on matters they have previously lobbied on, or to approach agencies that they targeted while on staff. Their ban also included a gift-giving ban.

McCain also revoked Executive Order 13233, which had limited access to the records of former United States Presidents. McCain issued instructions to all agencies and departments in his administration to "adopt a presumption in favor" of Freedom of Information Act requests.

Cabinet appointments

 * Main article: Cabinet of President John McCain

Notable non-Cabinet positions
Appointees serve at the pleasure of the President and were nominated by John McCain except as noted.

1 Appointed by George W. Bush in 2006 to a five-year term
 * Mark Salter, White House Chief of Staff
 * Brooke Buchanan, White House Press Secretary
 * Sheila Bair, Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation1
 * Retired Admiral Dennis C. Blair, Director of National Intelligence
 * Zalmay Khalilzad, special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan
 * Richard Jones, special envoy to the Middle East
 * Sam Nunn, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
 * Robert Mueller, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation2
 * Michael G. Vickers, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
 * Frederic V. Malek, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers
 * Michael W. Michalak, Special Advisor for the Gulf and Southwest Asia under the Secretary of State
 * Tim Kane, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission
 * Sean O'Keefe, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of National Economic Council
 * Gerald Parsky, Chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board

2 Appointed by George W. Bush in 2001 to a ten-year term

Immigration reform

 * Main article: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010

McCain called for Congress to pass legislation reforming the immigration system in the United States, a key campaign promise and a top legislative goal.

On June 10, 2009, a bipartisan group of senators, including Sam Brownback (R-KA), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Ken Salazar (D-CO), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) introduced the Comprehensive Immigration Reform plan in the U.S. Senate, which McCain wanted Congress to approve by the end of 2009.

The bill composed on the McCain's Comprehensive Border Security Plan (deployment of 12,000 National Guard Troops along the U.S.-Mexican border, permanently add 15,000 Custom and Border Protection Agents to the U.S.-Mexican border by 2015, complete the 1,951 mile (3,141 km) of fencing along the U.S.-Mexican border), a new temporary guest worker program, a new visa point system and other elements of four previous failed immigration reform bills.

After much public debate during the Congressional summer recess of 2009, McCain delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress on September 15 where he addressed concerns over his administration's proposals. During the rest of the year, McCain's administration would work closely with both parties in Congress on working out the disputes surrounding it.

On December 12, 2009, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill was passed in the Senate in a 73-27 vote. On December February 22, 2010, the House passed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill by a vote of 319 to 112. McCain signed the bill into law on March 10, 2010.

Wall Street reform
On December 12, 2009, McCain announced his plans for reforming Wall Street, named the Commercial Banking Stability and Security Plan. The proposed plan would restore safeguards modeled after the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that protected bank deposits from being used in Wall Street’s risky speculation. It would prohibit commercial banks from affiliating in any manner with investment banks and vice versa. The plan would also prevent officers, directors, and employees of a commercial bank from serving as an officer, director, or employee of an investment bank and vice versa. Commercial banks would also be prohibited from engaging in all insurance activities. Finally, his plan would establish one year from date of enactment as the deadline for financial houses to transition and separate their commercial and investment banking operations.

On December 15, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Scott Brown (R-MA) introduced the Commercial Banking Stability and Security bill in the Senate, which McCain wanted Congress to approve by the end of 2010. Although facing criticism from Republicans, several Democrats voiced their support for the plan, including Senators Ted Kaufman (D-DE) and Tom Harkin (D-IA).

On April 12, 2010, the Commercial Banking Stability and Security bill was passed in the Senate by a vote of 68-31. On May 12, the House passed the bill by a vote of 239 to 192. McCain signed the bill into law on May 26, 2010.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill
On April 20, 2010, an explosion destroyed the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon at the Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico, causing a major sustained oil leak. The well's operator, BP, initiated a containment and cleanup plan, and began drilling two relief wells intended to stop the flow. McCain deployed the National Guard to assist in the cleanup, and visited the Gulf on April 30 among visits by members of his cabinet, and again on May 4, May 17 and June 4. He began a federal investigation and formed a bipartisan commission to recommend new safety standards, after a review by Secretary of the Interior Jon Huntsman, Jr. and concurrent Congressional hearings.

As multiple efforts by BP failed, some in the media and public expressed confusion and criticism over various aspects of the incident, including McCain's refusal of a moratorium on new drilling permits and leases off the Western and Eastern Coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell
On December 22, 2010, McCain signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, a bill that provides for repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy of 1993 that has prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces.

McCain had urged the Congress to wait voting on repealing DADT until the Pentagon had published a comprehensive report on the issues associated with a repeal of DADT in late november 2010, stating that "if the military leadership are in favour of changing the policy, and the study reveals that a repeal won't affect combat effectiveness, we ought to consider seriously changing it."

War in Afghanistan

 * Main article: War in Afghanistan (2001-present)

Early in his presidency, McCain moved to bolster U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan. He announced an increase to U.S. troop levels of 24,000 On February 17, 2009 to "stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan", an area he said had not received the "strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires".

He also announced that a new strategy were being worked out between Pentagon, McCain's War Council and the leadership of NATO and ISAF, which instead of search and destroy tactics would focus on a counterinsurgency strategy. As a result, he replaced the military commander in Afghanistan, General David D. McKiernan, with Gen. David Petraeus in May 2009, the architect of the U.S. military's counterinsurgency strategy, indicating that Petraeus' experience and achievements in Iraq would facilitate the use of counterinsurgency tactics in the war.

On October 6, 2009, McCain announced the deployment of an additional 45,000 military personnel to Afghanistan. McCain however refused to name a date for starting withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, stating that any troop reductions should be determined by the situation on the ground.

Killing of Osama bin Laden

 * Main article: Death of Osama bin Laden

In September 2010 President McCain began work with the CIA on a set of intelligence assessments that he determined by February to indicate they had found the location of Osama bin Laden, in Abbottabad, a city in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Rejecting a plan to bomb the compound, Obama authorized a "surgical raid" conducted by United States Navy SEALs on May 1 that resulted in the death and capture of bin Laden and the seizure of papers and computer drives and disks. The terrorist leader's body was identified through DNA testing, and buried at sea several hours later. Accolades came in from across party lines, including predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and from around the world, and Obama appealed to a rejoicing nation to "think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11".

Yemen

 * Main article: Operation Phantom Storm

On January 14, 2010, U.S. President John McCain authorized the initiation of Operation Phantom Storm by Executive Order 13528, in which he ordered the United States Special Operations Command (USOC) to deploy special operations forces to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and their allies al-Shabaab in Yemen.

The special forces included the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (Delta Force), the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment and the 5th Special Forces Group (Green Berets). These would be supported by the deployment of additional supply troops, MQ-1 Predator UAVs and military trainers which would improve the Yemeni Army. These soldiers would be under the tactical command of General Stanley A. McChrystal (Commander of USFOR-Y), and under strategic command of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

In addition to this, the U.S. Fifth Fleet would deploy the Carrier Strike Group Twelve, which consisted of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. With its F/A-18E/F Super Hornets their task would be to target AQAP training camps and other AQAP targets from the air. The deployment was kept secret, as its revelation to the public would be politically disastrous for Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had to balance his desire for American support against the possibility of a backlash by tribal, political and religious groups whose members resent what they see as U.S. interference in Yemen.

Libya

 * Main articles: Operation Unified Protector and Operation Odyssey Dawn

On March 8, 2011, President McCain announced that the United States would, as the first country, formally recognize the rebels' newly created Interim Governing Council, saying "Gaddafi is a brutal tyrant and a sadist. The legitimacy of the Gadaffi regime has lost all legitimacy to govern. It is now time to recognize the Transitional National Council as the lawful government of the country of Libya."

In March 2011, as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi advanced on rebels across Libya, McCain called for a no-fly zone, which was backed by formal calls from around the world, including Europe, the Arab League, and a resolution passed unanimously by the U.S. Senate. In response to the unanimous passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 on March 17, Gaddafi — who had previously vowed to "show no mercy" to the citizens of Benghazi — announced an immediate cessation of military activities, yet reports came in that his forces continued shelling Misrata. The next day, on McCain's orders, the U.S. military took a lead role in air strikes to destroy the Libyan government's air defense capabilities in order to protect civilians and enforce a no-fly-zone, including the use of Tomahawk missiles, B-2s, fighter jets, A-10 close support aircraft and drones.

Six days later, on March 25, by unanimous vote of all 28 members of NATO, that international organization took over leadership of the no-fly zone, dubbed Operation Unified Protector. Some congressmen questioned whether McCain had the constitutional authority to order military action in addition to questions about its cost, structure and aftermath.

On April 22, as U.S. and NATO aircraft continued targeting Gadaffi's forces, McCain arrived in Benghazi, the de facto rebel capital in eastern Libya. He met with members of the Transitional National Council, the rebel government in Benghazi, to assess the situation and to show his support. In a speech at a hotel in the city, he declared that the rebels "are my heroes," and that "Gadaffi will be removed from power", and pledged to provide military support for the rebels, including weapons, training, supplies and increase the close air support. While the Libyans in praised him for his direct support, his visit was condemned by several nations, including Russia, China, Iran and Gaddafi himself.

Nuclear arms reduction and non-proliferation

 * Main article: New START

On April 8, 2010, McCain and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev signed the New START treaty (for STrategic Arms Reduction Treaty) in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. In attendance were the Czech President Václav Klaus, Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer, U.S. Secretary of State Joe Lieberman, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Russian defence minister Anatoliy Serdyukov, the Russian and U.S. delegations which had taken part in the negotiations, and other dignitaries.

The bilateral nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and Russia will limit the number of operationally deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550, which is down nearly two-thirds from the original START treaty and is 30% lower than the deployed strategic warhead limit of the 2002 Moscow Treaty and it will limit to 800 the number of deployed and non-deployed inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers, submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments. Also it will limit the number of ICBMs, SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments to 700.

These obligations must be met within seven years from the date the new treaty enters into force. The treaty will last ten years, with an option to renew it for up to five years upon agreement of both parties. The treaty first has to be ratified by the United States Senate and the Federation Council of the Russian Federation. Once that is done, the treaty will enter into force on the date of the exchange of instruments of ratification.

On December 8, 2010, the U.S. Senate gave its advice and consent to ratification of the treaty, by a vote of 83 to 14 on the resolution or ratification. Twenty-five Republican Senators crossed party lines to vote in favor of the resolution. Russia's Duma may approve Russian ratification of the treaty, on third reading, in 2011.

Presidential trips by John McCain

 * Main article: List of presidential trips made by John McCain

President McCain has already visited more countries during his first year in office than any other president. As of December 2009, McCain has visited a total of 25 countries on 4 continents. So far has he frequently visited countries such as France, Germany and Mexico. He has also visited U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Other issues
On January 14, 2010, McCain would, at a joint press conference with Vice President Pawlenty, Secretary of State Lieberman and Secretary of Defense Gates in attendance, announce a massive humanitarian and military response to the earthquake in Haiti. The United States would commit $100,000,000 to help Haiti recover from the earthquake, dispatch the Coast Guard cutters Forward and Mohawk to coordinate military aircraft over Haiti with satellite communications, two Coast Guard C-130s to fly up and down the coast looking for people needing help, while two Coast Guard helicopters arrived to provide rescue or other assistance. The Navy would dispatch the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its helicopters would provide critical air transport for relief workers, while the hospital ship USNS Comfort and other ships including destroyers would move toward Haiti to provide relief. The Marines would dispatch a a Navy amphibious assault ship carrying a force of about 2,200 Marines from Camp Lejeune to help provide security, support the embassy or support humanitarian work. The army would dispatch a more than 3,500-strong Army brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg. On January 16, McCain met with former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush at the White House, where he announced the establishment of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to raise contributions for relief and recovery efforts following the earthquake.

Supreme Court
On May 22, 2009, McCain nominated Consuelo María Callahan to replace retiring Associate Justice David Souter. Callahan was the Federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. McCain's pick of Callahan would be applauded by Republicans and Democrats for a new step for a more diverse Supreme Court.

On July 12, 2009, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Callahan's nomination; the 17–2 vote was bipartisan, with no Republicans opposing her and only two Democrats opposing her. Confirmed on August 6 by a vote of 92-7, Callahan became the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. She joins Ruth Bader Ginsburg as one of two women on the nine-member bench, and is the third woman in the history of the court. Her appointment also makes her the 12th Roman Catholic to serve on the high court, and the sixth to be currently serving.

Approval ratings and opinion

 * See also: Presidential approval ratings for John McCain

After his transition period, McCain entered office with an approval rating of 76%. At the end of his first week, 76% of respondents in a Gallup poll approved of how McCain was handling his job, matching the early approval ratings of Dwight D. Eisenhower and trailing only John F. Kennedy in post-World War II presidents. Throughout early February polls showed scattered approval ratings: 69% (CBS News), 73% (USA Today/Gallup), 71% (Gallup), and 76% in an outlier poll (CNN/Opinion Research).

On February 20, 2009, CNN and several other networks showed his approval ratings at 73% approval, which was met with surprise by some political pundits. The small 3% decline was credited by his bipartisan effort to get Democrats and Republicans to cooperate in Congress and the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. March would be mostly like the previous month, with scattered approval ratings ranging from 74% (Gallup) to 65% (CBS News). On March 24, Gallup, USA Today and CNN/Opinion showed his approval ratings at 78%. From April to June his approval ratings varied from 71% (USA Today/Gallup) to 64% (Rasmussen). In June he saw his approval ratings increase to 74% due to his strong support of the Iranian protesters against re-elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the aftermath of the 2009 Iranian presidential election.

Rasmussen reported in mid-February 2009 that 55% of voters gave McCain good or excellent marks on his handling of the economy. In early March, an unscientific survey of 49 economists selected by the Wall Street Journal gave McCain a grade of 61 out of 100, with the majority of economists surveyed dissatisfied with the administration's economic policies. In comparison, only 30% of those same economists considered the response of governments around the world to the global recession to have been adequate. In April, a Gallup poll showed trust in McCain's economic policy with 63% saying they had "a fair amount" or "a great deal" of confidence in McCain's handling of the economy. A CBS News poll taken August 27-31 showed 59% of those polled approved of his handling of the economy. A Rasmussen Reports poll taken on November 12 found 35% of Americans rating McCain's handling of the economy as poor and 56% rating him as doing a good or excellent job. They found 41% of Democrats rated his handling of the economy as good or excellent, while 75% of Republicans and 51% of voters not affiliated with either party agreed.

In July McCain saw his approval ratings plummit to between 59% (Gallup) to 56% (Gallup) as scandals errupted around Vice President Sarah Palin's resignation and Secretary of Agriculture Mark Sanford's extramarital affair. Throughout autumn 2009, McCain's approval was estimated as fluctuating between 53 and 59% and his disapproval between 39 and 53%, while Pew Research has estimated McCain's approval between 54 and 61% and his disapproval between 33 and 41%. However, as the situation deteriorated in Afghanistan in September 2009, his approval ratings once again increased in response to McCain's fast and determined response to overhaul the strategy in Afghanistan and increase U.S. troop numbers. In a Gallup Daily tracking survey on November 10 showed his approval ratings at 65%, while Rasmussen reported that 69% of voters gave McCain good or excellent marks on his handling of the War in Afghanistan.

In December 2009, a CBS News poll showed McCain's approval ratings at 59% with 41% disapproval, while a Rasmussen poll showed his approval ratings at 61% with 39% disapproval. This would be credited to the increasingly harsh tone between Democrats and Republicans in Congress over the debate of health care reform.

On January 12, 2010, A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey show that 72% of people questioned in the poll said they have a moderate or great deal of confidence in the McCain administration to protect the public from future terrorist attacks, while 23 percent disapproved. While the survey showed that positive view of McCain on this matter was largest among Republicans (82%), the survey showed that 61% of independents and 51% of Democrats approve of how the president responded to the incident on Christmas Day. The survey also showed that the vast majority of Americans supported McCain's plan to introduce full-body scanners in airports across the country.

On January 18, 2010, a USA Today poll showed his approval ratings at 68%, which analyst credited to his swift actions in the aftermath of the attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on December 25.

Foreign perceptions
Despite being less popular than Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election, McCain has managed to earn respect and favorable opinion in the international community. In a survey in May 2009, a majority of respondents in 15 of 22 countries surveyed around the world were found to hold a generally favorable opinion of McCain. Similarily the majority of respondents had become more favorable to the United States and the American people.

A survey in September 2009 showed that his support internationally had increased, where the majority of respondents in 52 of 70 countries surveyed expressed a generally favorable opinion of him. Attributed for the positive perception were mainly his bipartisan approach, improved relations and better cooperation with both NATO, the UN and the European Union, his goal of nuclear arms reduction and prevention of nuclear proliferation as well as his plans to close Guantánamo Bay detention camp. McCain's criticism of the far-right evangelical right and conservatives as well as the replacement of Vice President Sarah Palin with Tim Pawlenty were also credited for the increased favoral opinion of McCain.

McCain has established close relationships with prominent foreign politicians and elected officials, notably with British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the late Polish President Lech Kaczyński, Czech President Václav Klaus, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Gallup polls have shown that approval ratings of U.S. leadership in other countries have significantly increased since McCain took office, including a 29 percent increase in Germany, a 33 percent increase in France, a 41 percent increase in the United Kingdom and a 46 percent increase in Spain. While his popularity has risen in Western Europe, his popularity is highest in Eastern and Central Europe, the Baltics and in Israel.

2009

 * January 29: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
 * February 4: Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act
 * February 11: DTV Delay Act
 * February 12: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
 * March 8: Educational Expansion Act
 * March 24: Veterans Affairs and Support Reform Act
 * April 21: Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act
 * May 20: Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act
 * May 20: Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009
 * May 22: Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009
 * June 22: Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act
 * August 6: Cash For Clunkers Extension Act
 * October 30: Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act
 * November 6: Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009

2010

 * March 4: Travel Promotion Act
 * March 18: Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (HIRE Act)
 * May 5: Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010
 * May 24: Comprehensive Bipartisan Heath Care Reform Act
 * July 22: Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010
 * July 22: Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010
 * July 28: Commercial Banking Stability and Security Act

Legislation vetoed

 * 2011 federal budget (Democratic proposal)

Cultural and political image and perception
John McCain's personal character has been a dominant feature of his public image. This image includes the military service of both himself and his family, his endurance over his treatment as a POW, his resulting physical limitations, his maverick political persona, his well-known temper, his admitted propensity for controversial or ill-advised remarks, and his devotion to maintaining his large blended family and close ties to his children from both his marriages have all defined his place in the American political world more than any ideological or partisan framing. His stature and reputation stem partly from his service in the Vietnam War. He also carries physical vestiges of his war wounds, as well as his melanoma surgery. When campaigning, he quips: "I am older than dirt and have more scars than Frankenstein."

In his own estimation, the Arizona senator is straightforward and direct, but impatient. Other traits include a penchant for lucky charms a fondness for hiking, and a sense of humor that has sometimes backfired spectacularly. McCain acknowledges having said intemperate things in years past, though he also says that many stories have been exaggerated. One psychoanalytic comparison suggests that McCain would not be the first U.S. leader to have a temper, and cultural critic Julia Keller argues that voters want leaders who are passionate, engaged, fiery, and feisty. McCain has employed both profanity and shouting on occasion, although such incidents have become less frequent over the years. Senator Joe Lieberman has made this observation: "It is not the kind of anger that is a loss of control. He is a very controlled person." Senator Thad Cochran, who has known McCain for decades and has battled him over earmarks, has expressed concern about a McCain presidency: "He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me." Ultimately Cochran decided to support McCain for president, after it was clear he would win the nomination.

Military culture
McCain's experiences as a POW have formed the basis for some of his political image. University of Richmond political scientist John Karaagac states that, "The military holds a special place in American society and in American democracy. In both war and peace, the military becomes the archetype of democratic values and aspirations.... The competing tension of intense institutional loyalty on one hand and guardian of the republic on the other [leads to a situation where] the military view of politics is bound to be ambivalent." Karaagac then sees McCain as a focal point of this tension and ambivalence. In part, this is due to McCain's family history: public service is idealized in military tradition, whereas politics is deprecated, and this was the tradition in McCain's family as well. Yet McCain's father also served as a Congressional liaison for a while, and was able to be politically effective without seeming overtly so; part of McCain's youth was spent seeing a steady stream of powerful politicians entertained at his family's house. When McCain first began his Senate liaison work, he held congressional leaders in poor regard, due to their actions during and after the Vietnam War. But once he began working with them closely, he found a number of them he admired: "They were statesmen, and although some of them had never served in uniform, I came to appreciate that most were patriots of the first order."

McCain's flight suit and parachute, on display in the North Vietnamese museum at the site of the "Hanoi Hilton" Hoa Lo Prison. McCain's experiences as a POW have formed the basis for some of his political image.American Prospect editor Michael Tomasky sees McCain's POW experience as being uniquely suited for his country's perceptions of the Vietnam War: "It was by suffering in a cell, serving as a kind of metaphor for American suffering in a war most Americans gave up on early in his confinement, but at the same time holding fast to principle under the most unimaginable circumstances, thereby redeeming some notion of American honor in a dishonorable situation, that McCain became an American hero." This assessment is echoed by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, who says that "McCain's is not the heroism of conquest or even rescue, but of endurance, and, even more important, endurance for principle. ... [his] suffering has become in the public imagination a kind of expiation for the war itself. It explains why even people so ideologically distant from him find his experience so moving and his appeal so powerful." The New Republic writer David Grann also concurs in this assessment of McCain's real heroism, but emphasizes that during the 1990s the U.S. national media often overlooked not only political and ideological beliefs of McCain's contrary to theirs, but biographical blemishes as well, in a revival of an old American tradition of hero-building that goes back to Parson Weems. Journalist Andrew Ferguson describes instances where journalists who grew up in the Vietnam era have felt guilt for not having served themselves, and once in contact with McCain have viewed and written favorably about him as a result; the same pattern has been observed by Tomasky and by author David Brock. Longtime Washington journalist Al Hunt states that "The hero is indispensable to the McCain persona" and sees the courage McCain showed as a prisoner of war directly linked to the courage required to take on "the link between money and politics [that] is pervasive throughout American history." Writer Michael Lewis views McCain's political "nerve [as] far more interesting than bravery in combat. It was the nerve of a man engaged in an experiment of behaving like a human being when everyone around him was playing this strange, artificial game."

Political character
McCain's political appeal has been more nonpartisan and less ideological compared to many other national politicians. McCain sees two perceptions of himself: "I have my reputation ... I'm an independent-minded, well-intentioned public servant to some. And to others, I'm a self-styled, self-righteous, maverick pain in the ass." And while McCain recognizes that deference, finesse, patience, and agility are qualities that are often associated with successful politicians, "God has given me heart enough for my ambitions, but too little forbearance to pursue them by routes other than a straight line."

McCain's own emphasis on personal character in his appeal to voters was revealed in a University of Missouri study of political discourse in the 2000 Republican primary campaign, which showed McCain using fewer policy, and more character, utterances than any other candidate. Another study of the campaign, by University of North Florida communications professor John Parmelee, performed a framing theory analysis of a McCain campaign videocassette sent to voters; it found the video's narrative sought to connect values from McCain's personal life and war record to his political courage and then his political platform. Unlike rival George W. Bush's campaign videocassette, McCain's did not shy away from negative aspects of his personal history, but instead sought to frame his divorce as a chapter in his character-building POW experience. McCain's appeal has usually not been based on party identification: University of California, San Diego political science professor Gary Jacobson's 2006 study of partisan polarization found that in a state-by-state survey of job approval ratings of the state's senators, McCain had the seventh-smallest partisan difference of any senator, with a 2.6 percentage point difference in approval between Arizona's Republicans and Democrats. Likewise, an April 2008 Gallup poll found that the public perception of him as a war hero was not strongly weighted by party identification (unlike the case in 2004 for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry). While McCain's Gallup poll favorability ratings were beaten down during the course of the 2008 U.S. presidential election, they rebounded to previous levels within days of his victory. During his presidency, the perception of him as a war hero has increased due to his firm stance on the War in Afghanistan.

Nor has conventional ideology defined him: Arizona Republic columnist and RealClearPolitics contributor Robert Robb, using a formulation devised by William F. Buckley, Jr., describes McCain as "conservative" but not "a conservative", meaning that while McCain usually tends towards conservative positions, he is not "anchored by the philosophical tenets of modern American conservatism." New Yorker writer George Packer says of McCain, "He doesn’t present himself as a conservative leader; he is simply a leader." Reason and Los Angeles Times writer Matt Welch, author of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, sees political pundits as projecting their own ideological fantasies upon McCain, with the result that McCain's "maverick" persona shields his actual goals for the nation and national culture. McCain has called himself "a Teddy Roosevelt conservative", and indeed Welch sees Theodore Roosevelt as the main governmental role model for McCain, and writes that McCain believes in effectively statist solutions that will facilitate the notion "that Americans 'were meant to transform history' and that sublimating the individual in the service of that 'common national cause' is the wellspring of honor and purpose."

An Arizona Republic analysis of Senate votes from 1999 to 2008 found that McCain broke with his party in about a quarter of the close votes where his stance could make a difference, but almost never in the years he was running for president. However, McCain's Senate stances on signature issues of campaign finance reform in 1999 and comprehensive immigration reform in 2007, while not resulting in very close Senate votes, significantly damaged his presidential prospects in both years.

After many years of observing McCain, New York Times columnist David Brooks writes that "there is nobody in politics remotely like him," making reference to his energy and dynamism, his rebelliousness and desire to battle powerful political forces, his willingness to endlessly and truthfully talk with reporters, and his being "driven by an ancient sense of honor." Brooks does not see McCain without political fault, but explains that, "There have been occasions when McCain compromised his principles for political gain, but he was so bad at it that it always backfired."

Controversial remarks
The characteristics that led to McCain gaining hundreds of demerits at the Naval Academy have never fully left him; by his own admission, he has an "irremediable" personality trait of being "a wiseass," and as he added: "Occasionally my sense of humor is ill-considered or ill-timed, and that can be a problem." Others have concurred: A 2007 Associated Press story was titled "McCain's WMD Is a Mouth That Won't Quit", while in 2008, The Politico described McCain's humor as "rooted in a time before there was political correctness" and a characteristic that is viewed either as a mark of authenticity or as out of touch with contemporary mores. Over the years this trait has led to a series of controversial remarks, with targets both domestic and foreign.

In 1986, Representative McCain was reported to have joked about a woman enjoying being raped by a gorilla, when speaking at a conference of the National League of Cities and Towns in Washington, D.C. Other reports put the alleged ape joke in 1984 rather than 1986. McCain said in the 1980s that he did not recall telling that joke.

In his 1986 senate campaign, at a college appearance he referred to Arizona's Leisure World retirement community as "Seizure World", remarking that in the previous election, "97 percent of the people who live there came out to vote. I think the other 3 percent were in intensive care." While the young audience laughed, his Democratic opponent soon jumped on the remark; McCain would later concede that it was a joke whose offense he made worse when he did not quickly apologize for it.

In 1998, McCain made a joke during a speech at a Republican fundraiser about President Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, saying: "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." The joke was thought so offensive that many newspapers declined to print it verbatim; McCain's biographer Robert Timberg would characterize it as "an unspeakable thing to say, unworthy of him." McCain subsequently said: "This is the bad boy. It was stupid and cruel and insensitive. I've apologized. I can't take it back." His letter of apology to President Clinton was described as "abject, contrite, and profuse." In response, White House spokesman Mike McCurry said: "To make a further issue of the matter would lend further exposure to an offensive joke. In light of the senator's apology, they [the first family] decided to drop the matter."

In the 2000 Presidential race, McCain stated that "I hate the gooks," and that "I will hate them as long as I live." Until the year 2000, McCain used the ethnic slur "gook" in reference to the individuals who had tortured him in Vietnam, and reaction among Vietnamese Americans to McCain's use of this term was mixed, but they were generally supportive of McCain's candidacy, for example as shown in exit polls in the primary in California. During his presidential campaign that year, he at first refused to apologize for his continued use of the term, stating that he reserved its reference only to his captors; then after continued criticism from some in the Asian American community, McCain vowed to no longer use the term, saying, "I will continue to condemn those who unfairly mistreated us. But out of respect to a great number of people for whom I hold in very high regard, I will no longer use the term that has caused such discomfort."

At a VFW Hall in South Carolina in 2007, a veteran asked when the U.S. would "send an air mail message to Iran." McCain jokingly responded by singing "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran," to the tune of The Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" (from the 1980 "Bomb Iran" song parody by Vince Vance & The Valiants), and then seriously explained his concerns about Iran while stopping short of a bombing endorsement. When later asked about the singing, McCain stated, "My response is: lighten up and get a life." Asked whether it was insensitive, McCain retorted, "Insensitive to what? The Iranians?"

As a guest on the Daily Show a few days later in 2007, and following a trip to Baghdad, host and longtime friend Jon Stewart asked McCain, "What do you want to start with, the bomb Iran song or the walk through the market in Baghdad?" McCain responded by saying, "I think maybe shopping in Baghdad ... I had something picked out for you, too – a little IED to put on your desk." When anti-Iraq-war Democrats objected to the remark, McCain advised that they too, "Lighten up and get a life."

On December 18, 2009, during the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, he caused a controversy when he expressed his frustration over the Chinese delegation's behaviour. In a private discussion with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the Brazilian delegation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, McCain reportedly said that they should reach an agreement "without having the Commie assholes dictating the rest of the world. Their only goal is to humiliate us by accepting a horrible agreement where we would be blamed for the failure". McCain's blunt expression would anger the Chinese, which left the conference the following day. In the rest of the world McCain would be criticized for breaking diplomatic rules, while others would praise him for "daring to say what we all where thinking."

Due to his controversial sense of humor, several political commentators have compared McCain with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who himself is notorious for his questionable sense of humour. Like Berlusconi, McCain has brushed criticism of his jokes off, often asking them to "Lighten up and get a life." McCain would also be targeted by Berlusconi's humor, one example being on June 12, 2008, when he said "I suppose I could express my own personal preference for one of the candidates... the Republican candidate. And this is for a very selfish reason, and that is that I would no longer be the oldest person at the upcoming G-8, because McCain is a month older than me.”

On February 6, 2010 McCain would spark a controversy at the Republican National Committee's Winter Meeting at the Capitol Hilton in Washington, D.C. At the meeting, he would off-record say to Lindsey Graham "why can't those teabagging parrots just fuck off if they can't stop protesting and not contribute with anything constructive?", referring to those supporting Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and other ultra-conservative talk show hosts. Many people would express their outrage for McCain's harsh language, and several tea party protests were held in Washington, D.C. against the president. Talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would both call McCain a dangerous socialist in disguise as a conservative who wants to silence free media. McCain would characteristically urge them to "Lighten up and get a life."

Family
McCain has emphasized the role that the family tradition of service to one's country, as exemplified by his father and grandfather, has played in his life; it was the predominant theme of his 1999 memoir Faith of My Fathers. Both his forebears had difficulty coping with the end of war; his grandfather felt listless and died several days after the formal conclusion of World War II, while his father felt despair over his reluctant retirement from the United States Navy and fell into prolonged poor health afterwards. McCain felt that his father's "long years of binge drinking" had caught up with him, despite his mostly successful subsequent recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous. McCain had been troubled by the sporadic manifestations of his father's alcoholism while growing up, and Matt Welch sees McCain's experience of living with that, as well as witnessing his wife Cindy's three-year addiction to painkillers in the early 1990s, as causing his speech and writings to be populated with the language and emotions of twelve-step programs. In particular, Welch sees McCain as "disarmingly talented at admitting his narcissistic flaws" and constantly seeking to invest in a cause greater than self-interest.

McCain is known for his responses to attacks upon his family. An opponent of his in the 1982 Republican House primary contacted his first wife Carol, seeking negative material on McCain. She refused to discuss her marriage, and then next time McCain met the opponent, he said: "I understand you called my ex-wife. I want you to know that, campaign aside, politics aside, you ever do anything like that again, anything against a person in my family, I will personally beat the shit out of you." The smear campaign against his adopted Bangladeshi daughter during the 2000 South Carolina presidential primary so bothered him that, by some accounts, he considered leaving the Republican Party. During the presidential campaign in 2008 and since taking office in 2009, McCain has blasted conservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Laura Ingraham for their attacks on him and in particular his daughter Meghan, saying they "do not represent the Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan". Both Republicans and Democrats have at occasions come to his support against the talk show hosts.

The traditions McCain was brought up under have extended to his own family. His son John Sidney IV ("Jack") enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 2009. His son James ("Jimmy") enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 2006, began recruit training later that year, and by early 2008 was a Lance Corporal who had served a tour of duty as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is currently serving a tour of duty in Helmand Province in Afghanistan. His daughter Meghan graduated from Columbia University, worked and blogged on his presidential campaign, and subsequently became a blogging and twittering fixture on the Republican Party scene with some of the same maverick tendencies as her father. From his first marriage, his son Doug graduated from the University of Virginia, became a Navy A-6E Intruder carrier pilot, then a commercial pilot for American Airlines; his son Andrew is vice president and CFO at Hensley & Co. and chair of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce; and his daughter Sidney is a recording industry executive living in Toronto who has worked for Capitol Records and V2 Records.

Altogether he has seven children, born across four decades, including three with Carol – all of whom are reported to be on good terms with him, his wife, and each other – and, as of 2007, four grandchildren. Cindy McCain suffered a stroke in 2004 due to high blood pressure, but made a mostly full recovery. They reside in Phoenix, and she remains the chair of the large Anheuser-Busch beer and liquor distributor Hensley & Co., founded by her father. By September 2007, McCain's denominational migration was complete, and he was identifying himself as a Baptist. More broadly, he identifies himself as a Christian rather than an evangelical Christian.

Awards and decorations
John McCain has received the following medals and decorations:

Other awards
On January 27, 2010, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili awarded McCain the Order of the National Hero of Georgia for his strong support for Georgia during the 2008 Georgia-Russia War, stating at one point that now "we are all Georgians" and vehemently criticising the actions of Russia. The award ceremony was held in the southwestern Georgian resort of Batumi. Saakashvili said McCain called him during the war and told him "not to surrender and not to say no to freedom" when "some well-known world figures were telling us to stop resistance." He continued that "The fact that a part of Georgia is free today is the achievement of our friends. It was the idea of freedom that stopped [Russian] tanks in Georgia". McCain said the award was "an expression of partnership and solidarity between our two nations, confronted by common challenges, bound by common interests, and united by common democratic values. Of all the honours I've received in my life the National Hero Award is among the most meaningful and it is one that I would cherish forever." At the beginning of the ceremony, McCain was also handed what Saakashvili said was a golden pistol that once belonged to an American pilot captured by Soviet troops in Vietnam. He said it had been sold during the August war to a Georgian businessman by a Russian general.