JOHN MCCAIN Biography - Polititians

 
 

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JOHN MCCAIN

Name: John Sidney McCain                                                                   
Born: 29 August 1936 Coco Solo Naval Air Station, Panama Canal Zone                         
                                                                                           
John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States                   
Senator from Arizona and presumptive Republican Party nominee for President of             
the United States.                                                                         
                                                                                           
Both McCain's grandfather and father were admirals in the United States Navy.               
McCain attended the United States Naval Academy and graduated in 1958. He was               
married in 1965. He became a naval aviator, flying attack aircraft from carriers.           
During the Vietnam War in 1967, he narrowly escaped death in the Forrestal fire.           
On his twenty-third bombing mission over North Vietnam later in 1967, he was               
shot down and badly injured. He then endured five and a half years as a prisoner           
of war, including periods of torture, before he was released following the Paris           
Peace Accords in 1973.                                                                     
                                                                                           
Retiring from the Navy in 1981 and recently remarried, McCain moved to Arizona             
and entered politics. In 1982, he was elected to the U.S. House of                         
Representatives from Arizona's 1st congressional district. After serving two               
terms there, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Arizona in 1986. He was re-elected     
Senator in 1992, 1998, and 2004. While generally adhering to American                       
conservatism, McCain established a reputation as a political maverick for his               
willingness to defy Republican orthodoxy on several issues. Surviving the                   
Keating Five scandal of the 1980s, he made campaign finance reform one of his               
signature concerns, which eventually led to the passing of the McCain-Feingold             
Act in 2002.                                                                               
                                                                                           
McCain was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential               
election, but was defeated by George W. Bush after closely contested battles in             
several early primary states. In the 2008 presidential election cycle, McCain               
was the Republican front-runner as the cycle began. He suffered a near-collapse             
of his campaign in mid-2007, due to financial issues and his support for                   
comprehensive immigration reform. In late 2007, he staged a comeback. He won               
several key primaries during January 2008, and by the end of that month was the             
Republican front-runner once again. His lead was solidified by several victories           
on Super Tuesday in early February, and by the subsequent withdrawal of his                 
closest competitor, Mitt Romney; he gained enough delegates to become the                   
presumptive nominee on March 4, 2008.