John McCain

John McCain

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election.

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 having disagreed with his party. 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. He secured the nomination in 2008 after coming back from early reversals, but lost to Democratic candidate Barack Obama in the general election.

John McCain was born in 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 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. 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.

John McCain's early military career began when he was commissioned an ensign and started two and a half years of training at Pensacola to become a naval aviator. While there, he earned a reputation as a partying man. 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.

By then a lieutenant commander, McCain was almost killed on July 29, 1967, when he was near the center of the Forrestal fire. He escaped from his burning jet and was trying to help another pilot escape when a bomb exploded; McCain was struck in the legs and chest by fragments. The ensuing fire killed 134 sailors and took 24 hours to control. With the Forrestal out of commission, McCain volunteered for assignment with the USS Oriskany, another aircraft carrier employed in Operation Rolling Thunder. Once there, he would be awarded the Navy Commendation Medal and the Bronze Star for missions flown over North Vietnam.

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 August 1968, a program of severe torture began on McCain. He was subjected to rope bindings and repeated beatings every two hours, at the same time as he was suffering from dysentery. Further injuries led to the beginning of a suicide attempt, stopped by guards. After four days, McCain made an anti-American propaganda "confession". He has always felt that his statement was dishonorable, but as he later wrote, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine." Many American POWs were tortured and maltreated in order to extract "confessions" and propaganda statements, with many enduring even longer and worse treatment; virtually all of them eventually yielded something to their captors. McCain subsequently received two to three beatings weekly because of his continued refusal to sign additional statements.

McCain refused to meet with various anti-war groups seeking peace in Hanoi, wanting to give neither them nor the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory. From late 1969 onward, treatment of McCain and many of the other POWs became more tolerable, while McCain continued actively to resist the camp authorities. McCain and other prisoners cheered the U.S. "Christmas Bombing" campaign of December 1972, viewing it as a forceful measure to push North Vietnam to terms.

Altogether, McCain was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years. He was released on March 14, 1973. His wartime injuries left McCain permanently incapable of raising his arms above his head.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

McCain won re-election to a third senate term in November 1998, prevailing in a landslide over his Democratic opponent, environmental lawyer Ed Ranger. In the February 1999 Senate trial in the impeachment of Bill Clinton, McCain voted to convict the president on both the perjury and obstruction of justice counts, saying Clinton had violated his sworn oath of office. In March 1999, McCain voted to approve the NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, saying that the ongoing genocide of the Kosovo War must be stopped and criticizing 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.

McCain announced his candidacy for president on September 27, 1999 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 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, 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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. During the 2006 election cycle, McCain had attended 346 events and helped raise more than $10.5 million on behalf of Republican candidates. McCain also became more willing to ask business and industry for campaign contributions, while maintaining that such contributions would not affect any official decisions he would make. Despite being considered the front-runner for the nomination by pundits as 2007 began, McCain was in second place behind former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani in national Republican polls as the year progressed.

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. In mid-January, McCain placed first in the South Carolina primary, narrowly defeating Mike Huckabee. Pundits credited the third-place finisher, Tennessee's former U.S. Senator Fred Thompson, with drawing votes from Huckabee in South Carolina, thereby giving a narrow win to McCain. A week later, McCain won the Florida primary, beating Romney again in a close contest; Giuliani then dropped out and endorsed McCain.

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.

McCain, having been born in the (Panama) Canal Zone, if elected would have become the first president who was born outside the current 50 states. This raised a potential legal issue, since the United States Constitution requires the president to be a natural-born citizen of the United States. A bipartisan legal review and a unanimous but non-binding Senate resolution both concluded that he is a natural-born citizen. Also, if inaugurated in 2009 at age 72 years and 144 days, he would have been the oldest U.S. president upon ascension to the presidency, and the second-oldest president to be inaugurated.

McCain has addressed concerns about his age and past health concerns, stating in 2005 that his health was "excellent". He has been treated for a type of skin cancer called melanoma, and an operation in 2000 for that condition left a noticeable mark on the left side of his face. McCain's prognosis appears favorable, according to independent experts, especially because he has already survived without a recurrence for more than seven years. In May 2008, McCain's campaign briefly let the press review his medical records, and he was described as appearing cancer-free, having a strong heart and in general good health.

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.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was revealed as McCain's surprise choice for running mate on August 29, 2008. McCain was only the second U.S. major-party presidential nominee to select a woman for running mate and the first Republican to do so; Palin would have become the first female Vice President of the United States if she had been elected. On September 3, 2008, McCain and Palin became the Republican Party's Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees, respectively, at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota. McCain surged ahead of Obama in national polls following the convention, as the Palin pick energized core Republican voters who had previously been wary of him. However, by the campaign's own later admission, the rollout of Palin to the national media went poorly, and voter reactions to Palin grew increasingly negative, especially among independents and other voters concerned about her qualifications.

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. Another debate was held on October 7; like the first one, polls afterward suggested that Obama had won it. A final presidential debate occurred on October 15. During and after it, McCain compared Obama's proposed policies to socialism and often invoked "Joe the Plumber" as a symbol of American small business dreams that would be thwarted by an Obama presidency. McCain barred using the Jeremiah Wright controversy in ads against Obama, but the campaign did frequently criticize Obama regarding his purported relationship with Bill Ayers. Down the stretch, McCain was outspent by Obama by a four-to-one margin.

The election took place on November 4, and Barack Obama was projected the winner at about 11:00 pm Eastern Standard Time; McCain delivered his concession speech in Phoenix, Arizona about twenty minutes later. In the end, McCain won 173 electoral college votes to Obama's 365; McCain failed to win most of the battleground states and lost some traditionally Republican ones. McCain gained 46 percent of the nationwide popular vote, compared to Obama's 53 percent.

Following his defeat, McCain returned to the Senate amid varying views about what role he might play there. In mid-November 2008 he met with President-elect Obama, and the two discussed issues they had commonality on. Around the same time, McCain indicated that he intended to run for re-election to his Senate seat in 2010. As the inauguration neared, Obama consulted with McCain on a variety of matters, to an extent rarely seen between a president-elect and his defeated rival, and President Obama's inauguration speech contained an allusion to McCain's theme of finding a purpose greater than oneself. Nevertheless, McCain emerged as a leader of the Republican opposition to the Obama economic stimulus package of 2009, saying it had too much spending for too little stimulative effect.

Various interest groups have given Senator McCain scores or grades as to how well his votes align with the positions of each group. The American Conservative Union awarded McCain a lifetime rating of 82 percent through 2007, while McCain has an average lifetime 13 percent "Liberal Quotient" from Americans for Democratic Action through 2007.

The Almanac of American Politics rates congressional votes as liberal or conservative on the political spectrum, in three policy areas: economic, social, and foreign. For 2005–2006, McCain's average ratings were as follows: the economic rating 59 percent conservative and 41 percent liberal, the social rating 54 percent conservative / 38 percent liberal, and the foreign rating 56 percent conservative / 43 percent liberal.

The two political issues that voters have been most concerned about in 2008 are the economy and Iraq. On the economy, McCain says he would make the Bush tax cuts permanent instead of letting them expire, eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax so as to assist the middle-class, double the personal exemption for dependents, reduce the corporate tax rate, and offer a new research and development tax credit. At the same time, he pledges to eliminate pork-barrel spending, freeze nondefense discretionary spending for a year or more, and reduce Medicare growth. McCain is also opposed to high salaries and lucrative severance deals of corporate CEOs and is in favor of Say on pay laws that give stockholders a vote on executive compensation. Another proposal of the Arizona senator is to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030, in order to fight climate change and establish U.S. energy independence.

Additionally, McCain proposes that the federal government buy troubled mortgages, and provide low-interest mortgages to qualified homeowners. For people with 401(k) plans, he wants to allow more flexibility about when money can be withdrawn, and would lower the tax on that money, as well as lowering the tax on unemployment insurance benefits. McCain is also proposing to cut the capital gains tax on stock held for more than one year, while increasing the tax write-off for stock losses.

On Iraq, McCain's goal is that by 2013 most servicemen and women will have returned, the Iraq War will have been won, and Iraq will be a functioning democracy, "although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension." McCain expects that by 2013, there will still be violence, but at a much-reduced level, and without American troops in a direct combat role.

From the late 1990s until 2008, McCain was a board member of Project Vote Smart (PVS) which was set up by Richard Kimball, his 1986 Senate opponent. PVS provides non-partisan information about the political positions of McCain and other candidates for political office. Additionally, McCain uses his Senate web site, and his 2008 campaign web site, to describe his political positions.

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 maverick political persona, his temper, his admitted problem of occasional ill-considered remarks, and his close ties to his children from both his marriages.

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, as when he made a joke in 1998 about the Clintons widely deemed not fit to print in newspapers: "Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly? — Because Janet Reno is her father." McCain subsequently apologized profusely, and the Clinton White House accepted his apology. McCain has not shied away from addressing his shortcomings, and apologizing for them. He is known for sometimes being prickly and hot-tempered with Senate colleagues, but his relations with his own Senate staff have been more cordial, and have inspired loyalty towards him.

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.

All of John McCain's family members are on good terms with him, and he has defended them against some of the negative consequences of his high-profile political lifestyle. His family's military tradition extends to the latest generation: son John Sidney IV ("Jack") is enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy, son James has served with the Marines in Iraq, and son Doug flew jets in the Navy.

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John McCain presidential campaign, 2000

John McCain, the United States Senator from Arizona, launched his first candidacy for the presidency of the United States in the 2000 presidential election.

Announcing his run for the Republican Party nomination in September 1999, McCain was the main challenger to Texas Governor George W. Bush, who had the political and financial support of most of the party establishment. McCain staged an upset win in the February 2000 New Hampshire primary, capitalizing on a message of political reform and "straight talk" that appealed to moderate Republican and independent voters and to the press. McCain's momentum was halted when Bush won the South Carolina primary later that month, in a contest that became famous for its bitter nature and an underground smear campaign run against McCain.

McCain won some subsequent primaries, but after the March 2000 Super Tuesday contests he was well behind in delegates and withdrew. He grudgingly endorsed Bush two months later and made occasional appearances for him during the general election.

Potential weaknesses of a McCain candidacy included his senatorial accomplishments skewing towards the maverick side rather than those that would appeal to the party core; a lack of funds and of fund-raising prowess; and an unpredictability of personality and temperament. Potential assets included a lot of favorable treatment in the political media, and well as being featured on A&E's Biography series, and support from veterans. National polls showed McCain with low name recognition, but once voters were asked about a hypothetical candidate with a similar military biography, the numbers improved dramatically.

McCain had initially planned on announcing his candidacy and beginning active campaigning on April 6, 1999. There was to be a four-day roadshow, whose first day would symbolically begin at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, then see early primary states New Hampshire and South Carolina, before concluding in home Phoenix, Arizona with a big audience, marching bands, and thousands of balloons.

On April 13, McCain simply issued a statement without fanfare that he would be a candidate: "While now is not the time for the celebratory tour I had planned, I am a candidate for president and I will formally kick off my campaign at a more appropriate time." McCain and his wife Cindy would make some campaign-related appearances over the spring and summer.

McCain's co-authored, best-selling family memoir, Faith of My Fathers, published in August 1999, helped promote the new start of his campaign. The book garnered largely positive reviews, and McCain went on a 15-city book tour during September. The tour's success and the book's high sales led to the themes of the memoir, which included McCain talking more about his Vietnam prisoner-of-war experience than he had in the past, becoming a major part of McCain's campaign messaging.

McCain finally formally announced his candidacy on September 27, 1999 before a thousand people in Greeley Park in Nashua, New Hampshire, saying "It is because I owe America more than she has ever owed me that I am a candidate for president to the United States." He further said 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." As originally planned, he began his announcement day with a visit to the Naval Academy.

McCain's campaign used many veteran Washington political insiders, including some who had an insurgency-oriented or contrarian mindset. Rick Davis was the campaign manager for the McCain effort, while Mike Murphy was the overall strategist and John Weaver the chief political adviser. Greg Stevens was the media adviser and Mark Salter was the chief speechwriter (and credited co-author of McCain's books). Howard Opinsky was the campaign's press officer. Craig Turk was the general counsel.

After a while, a rivalry formed between Davis, at campaign headquarters, and Weaver and Murphy, who traveled on the campaign bus. Davis wanted a larger role in campaign strategy, and eventually differences between the two factions escalated to attacks made via the press.

There was a crowded field of Republican candidates, but the big leader in terms of establishment party support and fundraising was Texas Governor and presidential son George W. Bush. Indeed, by the time of McCain's formal announcement, top-echelon Republican contenders such as Lamar Alexander, John Kasich, and Dan Quayle were already withdrawing from the race due to Bush's strength. As McCain would later write, "No one thought I had much of a chance, including me." Four of McCain's fifty-five fellow Republican senators endorsed his candidacy.

The day after McCain announced, Bush made a show of visiting Phoenix and displaying that he, not McCain, had the endorsement of Arizona Governor Jane Dee Hull and several other prominent local political figures. McCain did have the support of the rest of the Republican Arizona congressional delegation. Hull would continue to attack McCain during the campaign, and was featured in high-profile Arizona Republic and New York Times stories about McCain's reputation for having a bad temper, with the latter featuring on-the-record criticism from Governor of Michigan John Engler. By early November, stories about McCain's temper problem were frequent enough that Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz wrote a survey article about them. Some of McCain's opponents, including those in or close to the Senate Republican leadership, intimated that McCain's temper was a sign of mental instability. The notion that this was due to McCain's POW days caused Admiral James Stockdale, a fellow former POW and 1992 vice-presidential candidate for Ross Perot, to write an op-ed piece for The New York Times, "John McCain in the Crucible". In it, Stockdale said that the reverse was true: that the experience of resisting during the POW experience made former POWs more emotionally stable in later life, not less. In early December, McCain released some 1,500 pages of his medical and psychiatric records, which showed several psychiatric evaluations over a number of years following his POW release that indicated no signs of lingering mental or emotional difficulty from that period.

Bush avoided most of the scheduled Republican Party debates during 1999, including one held on November 21 at Arizona State University in McCain's home state. There McCain debated second-tier candidates Alan Keyes, Orrin Hatch, and Steve Forbes instead. Bush finally did participate in the December 6 debate from the Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix, by which time McCain was so busy campaigning in New Hampshire that he had to join via a video linkup. There McCain's signature push for campaign finance reform led to one of the few lively exchanges in an otherwise placid event.

Following political consultant Mike Murphy's advice, McCain decided to skip the initial event of the nomination season, the Iowa caucus, where his long opposition to ethanol subsidies would be unpopular and his late start and lack of base party support would hurt him in the grassroots organizing necessary for success in the state. (He had earlier skipped the August 1999 Iowa Straw Poll, labeling it a sham.) McCain focused on introducing his biographical story, especially his Vietnam and POW experiences; a videocassette telling the story was sent to 50,000 voters in the first two primary states, as well as to military veterans in other states.

McCain traveled on a campaign bus called the Straight Talk Express, whose name capitalized on his reputation as a political maverick who would speak his mind. In visits to towns he gave a ten-minute talk focused on campaign reform issues, then announced he would stay until he answered every question that everyone had. He pledged that "I will never tell you a lie." He conducted 114 of these town hall meetings, speaking in every town in New Hampshire in an example of "retail politics" that overcame Bush's familiar name. His growing number of supporters became known as "McCainiacs".

McCain was famously accessible to the press, using free media to compensate for his lack of funds. As one reporter later recounted, "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." Some McCain aides saw the senator as naturally preferring the company of reporters to other politicians.

McCain and Bush argued over their proposals for tax cuts; McCain criticized Bush's plan as too large and too beneficial to the wealthy. McCain preferred a smaller cut that would allocate more of the surplus towards the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. McCain pushed his signature issue of campaign finance reform, and was the only candidate to talk much about foreign policy and defense issues.

The battle between Bush and McCain for South Carolina has entered American political lore as one of the nastiest, dirtiest, and most brutal ever. On the one hand, Bush switched his label for himself from "compassionate conservative" to "reformer with results", as part of trying to co-opt McCain's popular message of reform. On the other hand, a variety of business and interest groups that McCain had challenged in the past now pounded him with negative ads.

Bush mobilized the state's evangelical voters, and leading conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh entered the fray supporting Bush and going on at length about how McCain was a favorite of liberal Democrats. Polls swung in Bush's favor; by not accepting federal matching funds for his campaign, Bush was not limited in how much money he could spend on advertisements, while McCain was near his limit. With three days to go, McCain shut down his negative ads against Bush and tried to stress a positive image. But McCain's stressing of campaign finance reform, and how Bush's proposed tax cuts would benefit the wealthy, did not appeal to core Republicans in the state.

McCain lost South Carolina on February 19, with 42 percent of the vote against Bush's 53 percent, allowing Bush to regain the momentum.

McCain's campaign never completely recovered from his defeat in South Carolina. He did rebound partially by winning in Arizona and Michigan on February 22, mocking Governor Hull's opposition in the former. In Michigan, which he won 50 percent to 43 percent in an upset, he captured many Democratic and independent votes, who combined made up over half of the primary electorate.

Still reeling from his South Carolina experience, McCain made a February 28 speech in Virginia Beach that criticized Christian leaders, including Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, as divisive; McCain declared, "... we embrace the fine members of the religious conservative community. But that does not mean that we will pander to their self-appointed leaders." He also made an off-the-cuff, unserious remark on the Straight Talk Express than referred to Robertson and Falwell as "forces of evil", that came across as angry hostility to many Christian conservatives. McCain lost the Virginia primary on February 29, as well as one in Washington.

McCain had stated in mid-February that "I hate the gooks", in reference to his captors during the Vietnam War. This use gained some media attention in California, which had a large Asian American population. After criticism from some in that 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." Reaction among Vietnamese Americans to McCain's use of this term was mostly supportive, and exit polls in the primary in California showed that they strongly supported him. This was not the first or the last example of controversial remarks by McCain.

A week later on March 7, 2000, he lost nine of the thirteen primaries on Super Tuesday to Bush, including large states such as California, New York, Ohio, and Georgia; McCain's wins were confined to the New England states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Vermont. His overall loss on that day has been attributed to his going "off message", ineffectively accusing Bush of being anti-Catholic due to having visited Bob Jones University and getting into a verbal battle with leaders of the Religious Right. Throughout the campaign, McCain had achieved parity with Bush among self-identified Republicans only in the northeastern states; in most of the rest of the country, Bush ran way well ahead of McCain among Republicans, enough to overcome McCain's strength among independents and Democrats. With little hope of catching Bush's delegate lead after Super Tuesday, McCain withdrew from the race on March 9, 2000.

Following the end of his campaign, McCain returned to the Senate, where he was welcomed with respect for the effort he had made, his openness in the campaign, and for the attacks he had undergone. Other Republicans sought out his endorsement in their general election races. In the Senate, McCain continued his push for campaign finance reform. The question of whether McCain would endorse Bush remained uncertain.

McCain finally did announce he would campaign for Bush, in a joint appearance with him on May 9, but did not use the actual word "endorse" until reporters pressed him to do so. The Guardian characterized the endorsement as "tepid" and said that McCain "betrayed little outward enthusiasm" during the appearance, while The New York Times wrote that "there was a tight, grudging quality to the event," and that McCain had been "looking a bit like a teenager forced to attend a classical music concert." McCain also made it clear that he was not interested in a vice-presidential nomination.

McCain's plans to campaign for Bush in fall 2000 were delayed later in August by a recurrence of melanoma. This Stage IIa instance on his temple required extensive surgery that removed the lesion, surrounding lymph nodes, and part of the parotid gland. The final pathology tests showed that the melanoma had not spread, and his prognosis was good, but McCain was left with cosmetic aftereffects including a puffy cheek and a scar down his neck.

McCain did join Bush for a few days of appearances in late October, emphasizing, in the wake of the October 12 USS Cole bombing, his belief that Bush was a better choice than Democratic Party nominee Al Gore to deal with international security threats. Bush aide Scott McClellan later described the joint appearances by saying, "The tension was palpable. The two were cordial, but McCain would get that forced smile on his face whenever they were together." McCain also campaigned for about forty Republican House of Representatives candidates, and was credited by National Republican Congressional Committee chair Tom Davis with keeping the House in Republican hands. McCain would state that he voted for Bush on November 7 (although years later several witnesses would relate that McCain and his wife Cindy had both said at a dinner party that they had not). When the November presidential election continued on in indecision during the Florida election dispute, McCain stayed generally quiet in an atmosphere of extreme partisanship, though he did appear on CBS' Face the Nation to say, "I think the nation is growing a little weary of this. We're not in a constitutional crisis, but the American people are growing weary, and whoever wins is having a rapidly diminishing mandate, to say the least." Once Bush was declared the winner and inaugurated in January 2001, McCain's battles with him would resume, with a significant amount of lingering bitterness between the two men and their staffs over what had transpired during the course of 2000.

While South Carolina was known for legendary hard-knuckled political consultant Lee Atwater and rough elections, this had been more: Michael Graham, a native writer, radio host, and political operative, would say "I have worked on hundreds of campaigns in South Carolina, and I've never seen anything as ugly as that campaign." In subsequent years there would be persistent accounts trying to tie the anti-McCain smears to high levels of the Bush campaign: the 2003 book Bush's Brain would use it to build up their "evil genius" depiction of Bush chief strategist Karl Rove, while a 2008 PBS NOW program showed a local political consultant stating that Warren Tompkins, a Lee Atwater protegé and then Bush chief strategist for the state, was responsible. In contrast, in 2004 National Review's Byron York would try to debunk many of the South Carolina smear reports as unfounded legend. McCain's campaign manager said in 2004 they never found out where the smear attacks came from, while McCain himself never doubted their existence.

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Political positions of John McCain

U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), a candidate and the nominee of the Republican Party in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, has taken positions on many political issues through his public comments and his senatorial voting record.

Online, McCain uses his Senate web site and his 2008 campaign web site to describe his political positions.

McCain's 2006 rating by the Almanac of American Politics (2008) on Economic Policy is 64% conservative, 35% liberal (52% conservative, 47% liberal in 2005). McCain fleshed out the main points of his economic plan in an April 15, 2008 speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. In summary, McCain would make the Bush tax cuts permanent instead of letting them expire, he would eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax in order to assist the middle-class, he would double the personal exemption for dependents, reduce the corporate tax rate, and offer a new research and development tax credit. At the same time, he pledges to eliminate pork-barrel spending, freeze nondefense discretionary spending for a year or more, and reduce Medicare growth. He is also opposed to extravagant salaries and severance deals of corporate CEOs.

While McCain has historically opposed tax cuts in favor of deficit reduction, he now favors tax cuts. He says that he would reduce government spending to make up for the tax cuts.

McCain has declined to sign the pledge of the group Americans for Tax Reform to not add any new taxes or increase existing taxes. In 2002, Sen. McCain was one of only two Republicans to twice vote against the permanent repeal of the Estate Tax, and has recently stated opposition to a permanent repeal of the Estate Tax. McCain was one of two Republicans who voted against Bush's tax cuts in 2001. He opposed accelerating the cuts in 2003, saying that he was not in favor of cutting taxes during a time of war. In 2004 McCain appeared on Meet The Press with Tim Russert where he was asked about his opposition to the Bush tax cuts. McCain explained himself by saying, "I voted against the tax cuts because of the disproportional amount that went to the wealthiest Americans. I would clearly support not extending those tax cuts in order to help address the deficit." However, McCain supported the Bush tax cut extension in May 2006, and January 2008 he told Russert that he favors making those tax cuts permanent to prevent an increase in taxes while the economy was "shaky." He also said that his tax proposal would focus more on middle-income Americans than on the wealthy.

McCain supports ending the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, the Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser, and the Boeing and Science Applications International Corporation Future Combat Systems.

McCain has been called one of the Senate's most outspoken critics of pork barrel spending. On April 16, 2007, McCain gave a speech on the U.S. economy to the Economic Club of Memphis. He criticized wasteful spending and reiterated his promise to make any sponsors of pork or earmarks "famous" when he becomes president.

In March 2008, Gannett News Service reported that McCain's home state of Arizona ranked last in federal earmarks, because three of the state's ten lawmakers in Washington — McCain and House Republicans Jeff Flake and John Shadegg — refuse to ask for any federal money for local projects. In March 2008, he was one of twenty-nine U.S. Senators, including Obama and Clinton, to vote in favor of a one-year moratorium on earmarks.

McCain says he hopes to stop special interests from lobbying for special projects. His 2008 campaign website includes the statement that "The federal government spends too much money, squanders precious resources on questionable projects pushed by special interests, and ignores the priorities of the American taxpayer." Earmarks total about $18 billion a year, according to independent estimates. However, on August 2, 2007, he voted against a bi-partisan bill to provide greater transparency in the legislative process and to regulate lobbyists.

In April 2008, McCain proposed that seniors with higher incomes should pay higher premiums for government-provided prescription drug benefits (Medicare Part D) as a way to reduce federal spending on health care.

John McCain will fight to save the future of Social Security and believes that we may meet our obligations to the retirees of today and the future without raising taxes. John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts -- but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept.

McCain has not offered a specific plan to address the possible Social Security shortfall, but has stated that although he prefers not to raise taxes, all options, including payroll tax increases, are "on the table".

I will not play election year politics with the housing crisis. I will evaluate everything in terms of whether it might be harmful or helpful to our effort to deal with the crisis we face now. I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers. Government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy.

S.190 was a bill to address the regulation of secondary mortgage market enterprises, and for other purposes. introduced January 2005 McCain was a co-sponsor.

As of mid-September 2008, McCain had not introduced any banking or housing bills in the 110th Congress, which began in January 2007.

In 1999, McCain voted for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which passed in the Senate by a vote of 54-44. The deregulation bill loosened restrictions on the activities of banks, brokerage houses, and insurance companies. In 2002 he voted for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which passed the Senate without opposition. In 2007, however, McCain stated that he regretted his vote in favor of Sarbanes-Oxley, which strengthened financial reporting requirements for publicly held companies but which has been the subject of complaints from businesses.

On April 29, 2008, McCain detailed his health care plan in the context of his campaign for President. His plan focused on open-market competition rather than government funding or control. At the heart of his plan are tax credits - $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families who do not subscribe to or do not have access to health care through their employer. He says the money could be used to purchase insurance and force insurance companies to be competitive with their costs in order to attract consumers. To help people who are denied coverage by insurance companies due to pre-existing conditions, McCain would work with states to create what he calls a "Guaranteed Access Plan". He did not provide details, but pointed to states such as Florida and North Carolina where such systems are in place. His health care plan has an estimated annual cost of $7 billion, according to McCain's health-policy experts. On April 30, his campaign acknowledged that the health plan he had outlined would have the effect of increasing tax payments for some workers, primarily those with high incomes and expensive health plans.

McCain would pay for individual tax credits primarily by eliminating the tax break currently offered to employers for providing health insurance to employees.On October 5, 2008, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, McCain's senior policy adviser, said the tax credits would also be funded in part from eliminating Medicare (United States) fraud and by changing Medicare and Medicaid payment policies to lower the overall cost of medical care.

On August 14, 2008, McCain released a policy paper titled "John McCain and American Innovation" that proposed a ten-percent tax credit for wages paid employees doing research and development. The plan reiterated McCain's positions against Internet taxes and against laws guaranteeing net neutrality.

McCain is opposed to federal funding of Amtrak. He considers it to be a "pork barrel project", particularly as far as longer distance trains are concerned. He has also argued for more stringent safety standards with respect to cars.

As a member of the House, McCain sponsored a number of Indian Affairs bills, dealing mainly with giving distribution of lands to reservations and tribal tax status; most of these bills were unsuccessful. He then got the Indian Economic Development Act of 1985 signed into law.

As a senator, McCain often supported the Native American agenda, advocating self-governance and sovereignty and tribe control of adoptions. Along with Senator Daniel Inouye and Representative Mo Udall, McCain was one of the main writers of the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which codified rules regarding Native American gambling enterprises and established the balance between Indian tribal sovereignty and regulatory oversight by the states of such activity. The Act enabled the growth of what would become, two decades later, the $23 billion Indian gaming industry.

In late 2004, McCain helped pass the Arizona Water Settlements Act, the most extensive Indian water settlement in the country's history. In response to the Jack Abramoff Indian lobbying scandal and other developments regarding Indian gaming, by 2005 and 2006 McCain was pushing for amendments to the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act that would limit creation of off-reservation casinos by Indian tribes as well as tribes moving across state borders. During 2007, he continued to introduce a number of Indian affairs-related legislation.

McCain's alternative would have had a sliding scale of benefits to encourage retention by only offering the top level of benefits to those who stay for six years. McCain also argued that his version would involve less new bureaucracy than Webb's bill. A late May vote on the Webb bill passed 75–22, with McCain missing the vote due to being away from Washington.

In early June 2008, the White House signaled the president might be willing to sign a modified version of the Webb bill, along with the war funding bill, if transferability between spouses and dependents was added onto the new GI Bill. This would make the benefits more valuable to career military personal that would like to pay for their spouse or child's education. On June 19, this provision was added to the war funding bill. With the added transferability provisions for continued military service, McCain said he now supported the bill, because it encouraged additional service beyond three years, mitigating his earlier concerns. McCain, who had not voted in the Senate since April 8, was campaigning in Ohio on June 26 and was not present for the final senate vote on the bill, which passed 92–6 (The only other senator not voting was Ted Kennedy, who was recovering after surgery to remove a brain tumor). Bush signed the war funding bill, along with the veterans education benefits, into law on June 30, 2008.

McCain voted against the Telecommunications Act of 1996, on the grounds that it would not ensure competition enough in practice.

In 2002, McCain introduced the Consumer Broadband Deregulation Act of 2002, a deregulation measure aimed at preventing the government from requiring broadband providers to offer access to competing ISPs in the residential broadband market.

In 2006, McCain advocated easing of regulations to allow cable television companies to offer programming on an à la carte, per channel basis, along the lines of the Family and Consumer Choice Act of 2007.

McCain is against government regulation of network neutrality unless evidence of abuse exists. He is quoted as saying "let's see how this thing all turns out, rather than anticipate a problem that so far has not arisen in any significant way." Until such a time, he supports allowing network owners to control what sites consumers view, saying, in May 2007, "When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment".

McCain opposes the federal minimum wage; instead he believes that each state should decide its own minimum wage. On January 24, 2007 he voted Yes on legislation that would allow employers to pay less than the federal minimum wage if the state set a lower minimum. He also voted in favor of maintaining the filibuster against a bill to increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. This would effectively repeal the federal minimum wage. McCain has voted 19 times against raising the minimum wage.

McCain has said that he favors the concept of equal pay (the abolition of wage differences based on gender). He has, however, opposed specific legislation that would have given workers more time to discover sex discrimination before bringing suit under the Equal Pay Act of 1963. In 2007, the House of Representatives passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which, according to the National Federation of Independent Business, would have allowed "employees to file charges of pay discrimination within 180 days of the last received paycheck affected by the alleged discriminatory decision." The bill would have overturned the Supreme Court decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear. There the Court dismissed a woman's discrimination claim because she had filed it more than 180 days after the first affected paycheck. McCain, who said he opposed the bill, was campaigning in New Orleans, Louisiana at the time of the Senate vote in 2008, when the bill died because Democrats could not break a Republican filibuster (The vote in favor of the bill was 56-42, with 60 needed for cloture).

McCain has been perceived to be relatively hawkish on foreign policy, despite his advocacy of the withdrawal of US troops from Lebanon in 1982 (prior to the attack on the Marine barracks), Somalia in 1993, and Haiti in 1994.

Among McCain's advisers are Robert Kagan and William Kristol, the co-founders of PNAC and neo-conservatives who were influential in implementing the Iraq War. McCain has also allied himself with President George W. Bush, who brought into his administration a large number of PNAC members and neo-conservatives.

McCain's advisors have stated that they are not in favor of the peace negotiations that have been ongoing between Israel and Syria.

It is unclear whether or not McCain supports the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although McCain has courted the support of individuals and groups that are opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.

McCain's advisors have stated that they do not favor continuing the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

In October 2005, McCain, a former POW, introduced an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill for 2005. That month, the U.S. Senate voted 90–9 to support the amendment. The amendment was commonly referred to as the Amendment on (1) the Army Field Manual and (2) Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment, amendment #1977 and also known as the McCain Amendment 1977. It became the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 as Title X of the Department of Defense Authorization bill. The amendment prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, by confining interrogations to the techniques in Army Field Manual 34-52, "Intelligence Interrogation".

On December 15, 2005, Bush announced that he accepted McCain's terms and will "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." Bush made clear his interpretation of this legislation on December 30, 2005, in a signing statement, reserving what he interpreted to be his Presidential constitutional authority in order to avoid further terrorist attacks.

McCain argues that American military and intelligence personnel in future wars will suffer for abuses committed in 2006 by the US in the name of fighting terrorism. He fears the administration's policy will put American prisoners at risk of torture, summary executions and other atrocities by chipping away at Geneva Conventions. He argues that his rival bill to Bush’s plan gives defendants access to classified evidence being used to convict them and will set tight limits on use of testimony obtained by coercion. Furthermore it offers CIA interrogators some legal protections from charges of abuse, but rejects the administration’s plan to more narrowly define the Geneva Conventions’ standards for humane treatment of prisoners. McCain insists this issue overrides politics.

McCain, whose six years of captivity and torture in Vietnam made him a national celebrity, negotiated (in September 2006) a compromise in the Senate for the Military Commissions Act of 2006, suspending habeas corpus provisions for anyone deemed by the Executive Branch an "unlawful enemy combatant" and barring them from challenging their detentions in court. Coming on the heels of a Supreme Court decision adverse to the White House, McCain's compromise gave a retroactive, nine-year immunity to U.S. officials who authorized, ordered, or committed acts of torture and abuse, and permitted the use of statements obtained through torture to be used in military tribunals so long as the abuse took place by December 30, 2005. McCain's compromise permitted the President to establish permissible interrogation techniques and to "interpret the meaning and application" of international Geneva Convention standards, so long as the coercion fell short of "serious" bodily or psychological injury. Widely dubbed McCain's "torture compromise", the bill was signed into law by George W. Bush on October 17, 2006, shortly before the 2006 midterm elections.

McCain said in March 2007 that he would "immediately close Guantanamo Bay, move all the prisoners to Fort Leavenworth and truly expedite the judicial proceedings in their cases". On September 19, 2007, he voted against restoring habeas corpus to detainees.

John McCain has called the crisis with Iran "the most serious crisis we have faced - outside of the entire war on terror - since the end of the Cold War." "Nuclear capability in Iran is unacceptable," said McCain. McCain has criticized Russia and China for causing "gridlock" in the UN Security Council and preventing the sanctioning of Iran as well as other areas of conflict such as Darfur and Burma. If elected, McCain pledges to create a "league of democracies" with the purpose of addressing those conflicts without the approval of China and Russia.

Regarding military action against Iran, McCain has said, "I pray every night that we will avoid a conflict with Iran." He has also said, "There's a whole lot of things we can do before we seriously consider the military option," but clarifying, "I still say there's only one thing worse than military action against Iran and that is a nuclear-armed Iran." His comments regarding "bombing Iran" made to veterans in South Carolina have come under scrutiny, despite McCain's statement that the comments were made in jest.

McCain tried to persuade FIFA to ban Iran from the 2006 World Cup, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denials as the reason since such denials in Germany, where the competition was held, are illegal.

In June 2008, a group of congressional Democrats criticized McCain for voting against 2005 legislation that would have toughened sanctions against Iran. "McCain tries to give the impression that he's tough on Iran, but when it came time to stand up to party leaders and Big Oil, John McCain stood down," said senator Frank Lautenberg.

McCain supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the U.S. decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Following the invasion he criticized the Bush Administration's conduct of the occupation, and he later pushed for "significant policy changes" in the Iraq War. He criticized The Pentagon on a number of occasions, most notably in December 2004, concerning low troop strength in Iraq, and has called for a diversification of Iraqi national forces to better represent the multiple ethnic groups contained within the country.

On January 10, 2007, Bush announced the commitment of more than 20,000 additional troops as a part of the Iraqi troop surge of 2007. McCain was a leading advocate for the move, leading some Democrats to call the policy the "McCain Doctrine". Days after the announcement, McCain appeared on CBS' Face the Nation and said, "This is a chance under the new leadership of General Petraeus and Admiral Fallon to have a chance to succeed. Do I believe it can succeed? Yes, I do." On February 4, he criticised a bipartisan non-binding resolution opposing the troop buildup, calling it a "vote of no confidence" in the US military. The next day, McCain said, "I don't think it's appropriate to say that you disapprove of a mission and you don't want to fund it and you don't want it to go, but yet you don't take the action necessary to prevent it".

McCain's April 11, 2007 speech on Iraq was delivered to the Virginia Military Institute Corps of Cadets after his return from Iraq. He supported a new strategy in Iraq and opposed Democratic efforts towards troop withdrawal. McCain repeated his criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War on April 29 in Elko, Nevada, and stated that Rumsfeld would be remembered as "one the worst secretaries of defense in history".

On September 19, 2007, McCain voted against requiring minimum periods between deployments.

In November 2007, on the Charlie Rose show on PBS, Rose asked if South Korea might be an analogy of where Iraq might be, in terms of an American presence, over the next 20 to 25 years. McCain replied that he didn't think so - even if there were no (ongoing) casualties, saying "I can see an American presence for a while. But eventually I think because of the nature of the society in Iraq and the religious aspects of it that America eventually withdraws.

By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won….Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced….The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.

No, but that's not too important. What's important is casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea. Americans are in Japan. American troops are in Germany. That's all fine. American casualties, and the ability to withdraw. We will be able to withdraw. ... But the key to it is we don't want any more Americans in harm's way.

In July 2008, McCain said that reducing U.S. forces in Iraq would free up troops for Afghanistan, where "at least" three additional brigades, or about 15,000 troops, must be sent. A campaign aide said later that McCain's proposal included a combination of both U.S. and NATO forces.

McCain voted in favor of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction in 1991. He voted to ratify the START II strategic arms limitation treaty in 1996.

McCain voted against the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1999.

McCain maintains a relatively moderate stance concerning Pakistan, although he has recognized the South Asian nation as an important part of US Foreign Policy. In the aftermath of Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's assassination (in December 2007) McCain appeared to rule out the option of US forces entering Pakistan, saying that it was not an appropriate time to "threaten" Pakistan.

McCain has been one of the foremost Senate critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin: "I looked into his eyes and saw three letters: a K, a G and a B". He has said that Putin is "going to cause a lot of difficulties" and that he is "trying to reassert the Russian empire." In January 2007, McCain said that he thought Putin was using Russia's energy sources as a political weapon.

McCain was a fierce opponent of Putin's Invasion of Chechnya describing it as "a bloody war against Chechnya's civilian population." He stated "Yes, there are Chechen terrorists, but there are many Chechens who took up arms only after the atrocities committed by Russian forces serving first under Boris Yeltsin's and then Putin's orders." Like others, he disputes that the Russian apartment bombings had anything to do with Chechens, and that instead "There remain credible allegations that Russia's FSB had a hand in carrying out these attacks". He also blamed Russia's security services for political assassinations as well as the assassinations of independent journalists.

McCain is a strong supporter of ballistic national missile defenses. Russia threatened to place short-range nuclear missiles on the Russia’s border with NATO if the United States refuses to abandon plans to deploy 10 interceptor missiles and a radar in Poland and the Czech Republic. In April 2007, Putin warned of a new Cold War if the Americans deployed the shield in the former Eastern Bloc. Putin also said that Russia is prepared to abandon its obligations under a Nuclear Forces Treaty of 1987 with the United States.

During the 2008 South Ossetia war, McCain reacted strongly to Russia’s widening assault against Georgia. McCain said Europe and other nations must be united against such acts, and proclaimed support for the U.S.’s closest ally among the democratizing former Soviet republics. He also pointed out that NATO should reconsider its decision to deny Georgia the fast track for NATO membership. That decision “might have been viewed as a green light by Russia for its attacks on Georgia,” McCain said.

McCain also stated that Americans are supporting the "brave little nation" of Georgia against Russia's military attacks. McCain spoke with President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia, and told him "I know I speak for every American when I say, 'Today, we are all Georgians.'" "Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory. What is most critical now is to avoid further confrontation between Russian and Georgian military forces," McCain said on August 8, 2008.

When McCain was running for president in 2000, he supported the normalizing of relations with Cuba, even if Fidel Castro remained in power, provided that the Cuban government did certain things to democratize Cuba. McCain compared the situation to normalizing relations with Vietnam.

According to the JohnMcCain.com: "There is disturbing evidence Russia is already laying the groundwork to apply the same arguments used to justify its intervention in Georgia to other parts of its near abroad -- most ominously in Crimea. This strategically important peninsula is part of Ukraine, but with a large ethnic Russian population and the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea Fleet at Sevastopol." "Now, I think the Russians ought to understand that we will support -- we, the United States -- will support the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine in the natural process, inclusion into NATO""And watch Ukraine. This whole thing has got a lot to do with Ukraine, Crimea, the base of the Russian fleet in Sevastopol," said McCain during the first presidential debate of 2008 on September 26.

McCain is a believer in judges who would, as he sees it, "strictly interpret the Constitution," and is against what he sees as “the systemic abuse of our federal courts" by judges who “preemptively" decide American social policy.

For lower courts, he stated he would appoint a mix of moderates and conservatives. While McCain is opposed to abortion, he stated that he would not use abortion as the litmus test.

On May 23, 2005, McCain led fourteen Senators to forge a compromise on the Democrats' use of the judicial filibuster, thus eliminating the need for the Republican leadership's attempt to implement the so-called "nuclear option" (also known as the "constitutional option"). Under the agreement, Senators would retain the power to filibuster a judicial nominee, the Democrats would agree to use this power against Bush nominees only in an "extraordinary circumstance", the Republicans involved would agree to vote against the nuclear option if implemented, and three of the most contested Bush appellate court nominees (Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and William Pryor) would receive a vote by the full Senate. The agreement may have affected the likelihood that a Senate minority would defeat subsequent nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court (e.g. the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito). Such a defeat by a filibustering Senate minority could have become less likely if the so-called "nuclear option" had been successful, but such a defeat could have become more likely if the nuclear option had been voted down.

On February 28, 2000, during his presidential primary campaign, McCain sharply criticized leaders of the religious right as "agents of intolerance" allied to his rival, Governor George W. Bush, and denounced what he said were the tactics of "division and slander." McCain singled out the evangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "corrupting influences on religion and politics" and said parts of the religious right were divisive.

If one is to take Will's logic to its ultimate conclusion, why don't we cancel the State of the Union Address altogether? Congressional consent when judges are appointed? The power for Congress, not the President, to make declarations of war? The power of the President to convene joint sittings of Congress? Clearly, the doctrine of separation of powers, and Question Time are not mutually exclusive forces. The executive and the legislature are already intertwined. They keep a tab on one another and that is the precise purpose of both Question Time and the separation of powers: to keep a tab on decision making of various branches of government and make sure power is not concentrated in one area. Question Time would, as the name suggests, question executive power (true the British PM is part of the House of Commons but the Prime Minister is also part of the executive under a Parliamentary system). For once it might make Congress take interest in secret executive decisions. Imagine Bush taking Congressional Questions regarding his decision to deploy troops to Iraq. By the same token, Question Time allows the President to critique the legislature in person. It would also allow the President to reason, to compromise and to plead with Congress in order to pass necessary reforms more efficiently. As noted, the President can already convene joint sittings of Congress. Unlike the UK system, however, Members of Congress can speak out against their own party's policy without being dropped from Cabinet or Congress. This is yet another reason why Question Time is suited more for the US system of government more rather than the UK system of fusion of powers. Therefore, Question Time is a check and balance in and of itself, whether the executive is clarifying his or her qualms with the legislature, or the legislature clarifying their qualms and problems with the President. There is dialogue and accountability between the branches: a very welcomed reform indeed.

McCain has a lifetime pro-environment rating of 24 on a scale of 100 on the League of Conservation Voters's National Environmental Scorecard, which reflects the consensus of experts from about 20 leading environmental organizations. According to the League of Conservation Voters' 2006 National Environmental Scorecard, McCain took an "anti-environment" stance on four of seven environmental resolutions during the second session of the 109th congress. The four resolutions dealt with issues such as offshore drilling, an Arctic national wildlife refuge, low-income energy assistance, and environmental funding.

McCain is a member of the Honorary Board of the Republicans for Environmental Protection organization.

On April 23, 2007, McCain gave a major speech on his energy policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. He said that U.S. dependence on foreign oil is "a major strategic vulnerability, a serious threat to our security, our economy and the well-being of our planet," explicitly connecting energy independence with national security, climate change, and the environment.

McCain generally supports increased energy efficiency, but has not announced specific targets. He has called for raising gas mileage standards to 35 m.p.g.

In McCain's campaign for the presidency in 2000, he supported the federal ban on offshore drilling for oil. In June 2008, McCain reversed his longstanding objection to offshore drilling. Stating that he had changed his views because of high gas prices and dependence on imports, he endorsed legislation that would give each coastal state the power to determine whether to allow offshore drilling.

McCain has generally opposed drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but did vote in favor of preserving the budget for ANWR oil drilling.

McCain has voted to reduce federal funds for renewable and solar energy. He opposed tax credits in 2001 and 2006 for companies that generate power from solar, wind, geothermal and ocean wave energy.

In 2000, McCain skipped most of the Iowa caucuses during his presidential bid, in large part because his opposition to ethanol subsidies was a nonstarter in a state where making corn into fuel was a large and profitable business.

In April 2007, McCain proposed increasing ethanol imports.

Although many factors may contribute to high food costs, food-to-fuel mandates are the only factors that can be reconsidered in light of current circumstances.

McCain voted five times in the 1990s against taxpayer aid for research on new-generation nuclear reactors. Through 2003, he opposed federal loan guarantees to help the nuclear industry finance new plants.

In 2005, McCain began supporting more taxpayer assistance for nuclear energy, as part of his proposed legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions. In April 2007, McCain proposed better harnessing of nuclear power, much as Europe has managed to do. McCain is now calling for 45 new nuclear reactors to be built in the United States by 2030. In 2008, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and Public Citizen estimated that one version of McCain's bill would authorize more than $3.7 billion in subsidies for new nuclear plants.

McCain has long been a supporter of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. In 2008, however, on the eve of a campaign appearance in Nevada, he called for the establishment of "an international repository for spent nuclear fuel", which, he said, might make it unnecessary to open Yucca Mountain.

The Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Obama campaign have charged that, in a videotaped interview in 2007, McCain reiterated his support for transporting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain but said he would not be comfortable with such transports going through Phoenix, Arizona. The McCain campaign responded by attacking Obama's record on energy issues.

McCain has also been criticized for failing to deal with nuclear waste contamination problems in his home state of Arizona.

McCain has repeatedly cited France as a role model because it gets nearly 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, which helps the country to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions, and has made it one of the world's leading net exporters of energy.

In September 2007, McCain said that he supported a 65% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050.

McCain's position on greenhouse gas emissions calls for a timetable mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency that gradually reduces greenhouse ceilings. McCain's stance also includes an emission credit system that regulates each metric ton of greenhouse a company produces. This plan is to be put in to effect by 2012.

McCain is co-sponsor of a Senate cap-and-trade bill designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and is seen as a bipartisan leader on the issue.

In February 2007, McCain and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for a nationwide roll-out of California's new low carbon fuel standard. In April 2007, McCain proposed moving from exploration to production of plug-in electric vehicles.

In 2007, McCain sided with Bush against Florida Republicans in opposing a Congressional override of Bush's veto of a water projects bill that would have approved $2 billion for restoration of the Everglades, despite $7.8 billion that had been earmarked for the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) in 2000. The State of Florida has, since the passing of CERP, spent $2 billion on CERP initiatives, though the federal government has declined to fund initiatives written in CERP. In 2004, a group of real estate developers, led by a major fundraiser to McCain's campaign, Al Hoffman, worked to block state efforts to follow through on restoration works. McCain said on June 4, 2008 while touring the Everglades, that he supported "adequate funding" for restoration but that it had to be achieved "without sacrificing fiscal responsibility", though he declined to state which CERP programs were irresponsible.

The Colorado River Compact allocates the water of the Colorado River among seven states. McCain has called for renegotiating the Compact, a statement that has been interpreted as a suggestion that less water be reserved for the Upper Basin states (Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming) in order to provide more for the Lower Basin states (California, Arizona, and Nevada).

McCain's 2006 rating by the Almanac of American Politics (2008) on Social Policy is 46% conservative, 53% liberal. (2005: 64% conservative, 23% liberal.) McCain also has an 83% rating from the Christian Coalition, which indicates many socially conservative views such as voting yes on $75M for abstinence education, yes on recommending a Constitutional ban on flag desecration, and voting yes on memorial prayers and religious symbols at school.

McCain has stated that he believes personhood begins at the moment of conception and that embryos should be afforded full human rights.

In June 1984, McCain voted for H.AMDT.942, the Siljander amendment, to H.R.5490, "An amendment to define "person" as including unborn children from the moment of conception".

However, on February 18, 2007, McCain stated, "I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned." McCain has said he supports amending the U.S. Constitution to ban abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or risk to the mother's life.

McCain has voted 119 times on pro-life measures in the Senate including co-sponsoring the Federal Abortion Ban.

McCain has a consistent 0 percent rating from the Pro-Choice group, NARAL, and a 75% rating from the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).

McCain is against federal funding of birth control and sex education; his opposition included a vote against spending $100 million to reduce teen pregnancy by education and contraceptives.

McCain voted in 2003 and 2005 against legislation requiring insurance plans that cover prescription drugs to also cover birth control.

In 1998 McCain opposed an Arizona ballot proposal to end affirmative action. He stated, "Rather than engage in divisive ballot initiatives, we must have a dialogue and cooperation and mutual efforts together to provide for every child in America to fulfill their expectations." That same year, McCain voted to keep a program which directed ten percent of federal surface transportation funds to firms owned by women and racial minorities. In 1999 McCain pushed legislation which would give companies tax breaks for selling media properties to minorities. In 2003 McCain reintroduced the legislation.

In July 2008, USA Today reported that "McCain said Sunday that he favors a proposed referendum in Arizona that would ban affirmative action, reversing a position he took a decade ago." He also said that he had always been against quotas.

McCain backs reauthorization of the Americans with Disabilities Act, saying in a July 26, 2008 address to the Americans with Disabilities Conference that he will support the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 passed by the House of Representatives when it comes to a Senate vote. McCain has not completed a questionnaire on disability issues furnished to his campaign by the American Association of People with Disabilities.

McCain's family has close ties to Anheuser-Busch through its Hensley & Co. distributor. McCain has recused himself from voting on bills before Congress dealing with alcohol-related matters.

McCain voted Yes on a 2004 crime bill which mandated prison terms for crimes involving firearms and stricter penalties for other gun and drug law violations.

McCain has indicated that he supports the use of the death penalty, mandatory prison terms for selling illegal drugs, and stronger restrictions on the purchase and possession of guns. McCain is a proponent of mandatory sentencing in general.

McCain voted in support of the USA PATRIOT Act. In a speech in Westport, Connecticut, he said that "sometimes democracies overreact" during times of national security crises, and pledged to periodically review the Patriot Act in order to safeguard civil liberties.

McCain voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act, extending the measure with some amendments clarifying the rights of an individual who has received FISA orders to challenge nondisclosure requirements and to refuse disclosure of the name of their attorney. Voting against this bill would have terminated the Patriot Act.

McCain voted to extend the Patriot Act’s Wiretap Provision. This piece of legislation would allow the FBI to use roaming wiretaps on U.S. residents and would concede to the Federal Agents entry and access to corporate accounts. Voting for this bill would extend the Patriot Act to December 31, 2009, thereby making its provisions permanent whereas voting against this bill would keep the Patriot Act provisional.

In 1999, when the U.S. military was experiencing significant recruiting shortfalls, McCain was one of several members of Congress who mused publicly about reinstating the draft.

McCain supports the use of school vouchers. Some of McCain's votes include voting yes on school vouchers in DC, yes on education savings accounts, yes on allowing more flexibility in federal school rules, and voting no on $5 billion for grants to local educational agencies. He supports merit pay for teachers, along with firing them if they don't meet certain standards. He sponsored the Education A-Plus bill in 1997 and again in 1999, which would have allowed parents to open tax-free savings accounts for their children's school expenses, such as tutoring, computers and books. McCain co-sponsored the Child Nutrition Act, which would provide federal funding for at-risk children. He said when running for President in 2000 that he would take $5.4 billion away from sugar, gas and ethanol subsidies and pour that money into a test voucher program for every poor school district in America. He voted against diverting $51.9 million away from the Department of Labor and putting it towards after-school community learning centers, and he voted against an amendment which would fund smaller class sizes rather than providing funds for private tutors.

In a speech before the National Rifle Association in September 2007, McCain said "For more than two decades, I've opposed the efforts of the anti-gun crowd to ban guns, ban ammunition, ban magazines, and paint gun owners as some kind of fringe group; dangerous in 'modern' America. Some even call you 'extremists.' My friends, gun owners are not extremists, you are the core of modern America." McCain was a signatory of an amicus brief (friend of the court) filed on behalf of 55 U.S. Senators, 250 Representatives and Vice-President Dick Cheney, advising that the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller be affirmed, overturning the ban on handguns not otherwise restricted by Congress.

McCain has received fair to poor ratings on gun issues from the National Rifle Association, garnering a C+. According to a review by Gun Owners of America (GOA), "in 2001, McCain went from being a supporter of anti-gun bills to being a lead sponsor". McCain's GOA rating went from a "C-" in 2000 to an "F-" in 2006.

McCain has said that as president he would push for more money and military help to drug-supplying nations such as Colombia. He supports expanding the use of federally funded drug treatment and prevention programs and forging public/private partnerships. McCain supported the Drug Free Borders Act of 1999, which provided $1 billion to increase detection of illegal drugs entering the country and also supported the authorization of $53 million in international development funds to stop illegal narcotics.

In 1999, in a Republican presidential debate at Dartmouth College, McCain opposed the legalization of marijuana. He said, "We’re losing the war on drugs. We ought to say, 'It’s not a war anymore,' or we really ought to go after it. And there was a time in our history when we weren’t always losing the war on drugs. It was when Nancy Reagan had a very simple program called 'Just Say No.' And young Americans were reducing the usage of drugs in America." At the debate, McCain called marijuana a "gateway drug".

McCain has promoted the legislation and eventually the granting of citizenship to the estimated 12–20 million illegal aliens in the United States and the creation of an additional guest worker program with an option for permanent immigration. His prominent role in promoting the Senate's 2006 immigration legislation, including an initial cosponsorhip role with Ted Kennedy, made him a focus of the debate in 2006, and his support for S.1348 did so again in 2007. The immigration issue caused intense friction within his own party, such as when The Washington Times reported that McCain and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham "first checked with Mr. Kennedy before deciding to vote with the Massachusetts Democrat on an amendment to the Senate bill." McCain's immigration stance was widely cited as a major reason for his presidential campaign's difficulty during most of 2007.

In his bid for the 2000 Presidential nomination, McCain supported expansion of the H-1B visa program, a temporary visa for skilled workers. In 2005, he co-sponsored a bill with Ted Kennedy that would expand use of guest worker visas.

McCain campaigned against Proposition 200, a 2004 Arizona state initiative intended to prevent illegal immigrants from voting, receiving welfare benefits, and mandated state agencies to report illegals to the federal government. McCain argued Prop 200 would be overly expensive to execute, that it would be ineffectual, and that immigration regulation falls only under the purview of the federal government.

McCain has repeatedly argued that low-skilled immigrant labor is necessary to supply service roles that native-born Americans refuse. In one widely remarked-upon incident, he insisted to a union group that none of them would be willing to pick lettuce for fifty dollars an hour. The audience interrupted with offers and several weeks later demonstrators showed up at his Phoenix office to apply for lettuce picking work.

In May 2007, McCain conceded to Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly that passage of amnesty will permanently change the ethnic makeup of the country. He supports a path to citizenship for an estimated twelve to twenty million immigrants, on the condition of a thirteen year waiting period.

In June 2007, McCain voted in favor of declaring English as the official language of the federal government.

McCain has subsequently stated that the nation's first priority must be to emphasize border security, and that debate over immigration is a secondary issue.

In 2004, McCain voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, arguing that each state should be able to choose whether to recognize same-sex marriage. He supported the failed 2006 Arizona initiative to ban same-sex marriage and the successful California Proposition 8. He also voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 which barred the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages.

In 1983, McCain opposed creating a federal holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. The House vote was 338-90 and President Reagan signed the bill into law later that year, creating Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

McCain continued his opposition to a holiday for King by supporting Governor of Arizona Evan Mecham's rescinding of the Arizona state holiday for King in 1987. By 1989, McCain reiterated his opposition to the federal holiday, but reversed position on the state holiday, due to the economic boycotts and image problems Arizona was receiving as a result of it not having one.

In 1990, McCain persuaded Reagan to issue a statement of support for the holiday through McCain’s office, asking Arizonans to "join me in supporting a holiday to commemorate these ideals to which Dr. King dedicated his life." The 1990 referendum failed, and in 1992 McCain supported another referendum for a state holiday, which passed.

We can be slow as well to give greatness its due, a mistake I made myself long ago when I voted against a federal holiday in memory of Dr. King. I was wrong and eventually realized that, in time to give full support for a state holiday in Arizona. We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing, and Dr. King understood this about his fellow Americans.

McCain has expressed his strong support for NASA and the space program.

In 1998, McCain supported an unsuccessful bill that would have imposed a federal tax of $1.10 per pack on cigarettes to fund programs to cut underage smoking. "I still regret we did not succeed", he said in October 2007. In 2007, McCain voted against legislation that would have used a 61-cents-per-pack tax to expand a children's health program, saying that he disagreed with the concept: "We are trying to get people not to smoke, and yet we are depending on tobacco to fund a program that's designed for children's health?" In February 2008 he said that he would have a "no new taxes" policy as president.

The following table provides external links regarding bills and amendments that John McCain has either sponsored or cosponsored during his years in Congress, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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John McCain presidential campaign, 2008

John McCain, the senior United States Senator from Arizona, launched his second candidacy for the presidency of the United States in an unsuccessful bid for the 2008 presidential election. His candidacy, in the works for a number of years, was informally announced on February 28, 2007 during a live taping of The Late Show with David Letterman, and formally announced on April 25, 2007. His running mate for vice president was Sarah Palin, the incumbent Governor of Alaska, announced on August 29, 2008.

If McCain had won the election in 2008, he would have been the oldest person to assume the Presidency in history upon initial ascension to office at age 72, and the second-oldest president to be inaugurated. He addressed concerns about his age and past health concerns (melanoma in 2000), stating in 2005 that his health was "excellent." Had he been victorious in 2008, he would also have become the first President of the United States not to be born in the current 50 states (he was born in Panama within the Panama Canal Zone which was under American control), and the first sitting U.S. Senator since John F. Kennedy to win the presidency. He would also have been the first president from Arizona. His running mate, Palin, was the first Alaskan on a nominated major-party presidential ticket, and the first woman to represent the Republican Party on a nominated presidential ticket.

McCain began the campaign as the apparent frontrunner among Republicans, with a strategy of appearing as the establishment, inevitable candidate; his campaign website featured an Associated Press article describing him as " political celebrity". He made substantial overtures towards elements of the Republican base that had resisted his 2000 insurgency campaign. However, he soon fell behind in polls and fundraising; by July 2007 his campaign was forced to restructure its size and operations. The tide of Republican sentiment against immigration legislation he has sponsored also led to the erosion of his lead.

Towards the end of 2007, McCain began a resurgence, which was capped by his January 2008 wins in the New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida primaries. This made him the front-runner for the Republican nomination. On Super Tuesday, McCain won both the majority of states and delegates in the Republican primaries, giving him a commanding lead toward the Republican nomination. McCain clinched a majority of the delegates and became the presumptive Republican nominee with wins in several more primaries on March 4. The following day, President George W. Bush endorsed McCain at the White House.

In the general election against Democratic nominee Barack Obama, McCain trailed most of the time, only gaining a lead in national polls for a period after the Palin announcement and the 2008 Republican National Convention. The dominant issue of the campaign became the financial crisis of 2008. Unable to gain traction against Obama in presidential debates, the final stages of the campaign saw McCain criticizing Obama for being a "redistributionist" and adopting symbols such as Joe the Plumber. On November 4, 2008, Obama defeated McCain in the presidential election, winning with a 365–173 electoral college vote margin and a 53–46 percent popular vote edge.

McCain's oft-cited strengths as a potential presidential candidate in 2008 included national name recognition, sponsorship of major lobbying and campaign finance reform initiatives and leadership in exposing the Abramoff scandal.

He is well-known for his military service (including years as a tortured POW) and competing in the 2000 presidential campaign, when he won the New Hampshire primary. McCain also impressed many Republicans with his strong support for President Bush's re-election campaign in 2004, and his role in the confirmation of many of Bush's judicial nominees. Since 1993, he also has served as chairman of the International Republican Institute, a U.S. government-funded organization involved in supporting political democracy around the world.

A Time magazine poll dated January 2007 showed McCain deadlocked with possible Democratic opponent Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at 46%; in the same poll McCain trailed Democrat Senator Barack Obama 41% to 48%. An earlier Time Magazine poll indicated that more Americans were familiar with McCain than any of the other frontrunners, including Obama and Republican candidate and former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani. During the 2006 election cycle, McCain attended 346 events and raised more than $10.5 million on behalf of Republican candidates. He also donated nearly $1.5 million to federal, state and county parties.

In May 2006, McCain gave the commencement address at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. During his 2000 presidential bid, McCain had called Falwell an "agent of intolerance." With significant coverage during the campaign, McCain said that he would never back down from his earlier statement. His later appearance at Liberty University prompted questions about the McCain-Falwell relationship and a possible presidential run in 2008. McCain backtracked and stated that Falwell is no longer as divisive and the two have discussed their shared values. McCain delivered a similar address at The New School commencement in Madison Square Garden. McCain was booed, and several students and professors turned their backs or waved fliers reading "McCain does not speak for me." McCain's speech mentioned his unwavering support for the Iraq War and focused on hearing opposing viewpoints, listening to each other, and the relevance of opposition in a democracy.

McCain informally announced his candidacy on the Wednesday, February 28, 2007 telecast of the Late Show With David Letterman.

He then announced his formal candidacy for the presidency of the United States and in turn, his intention to seek the nomination of the Republican Party for the 2008 presidential election, shortly after noon in Prescott Park on the waterfront of Portsmouth, New Hampshire on Wednesday, April 25, 2007. In his announcement, McCain emphasized that "America should never undertake a war unless we are prepared to do everything necessary to succeed," and he also 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." The audience was somewhat listless. He then visited Manchester, New Hampshire in a cold rain on the same day, before starting a planned three-day campaign rally in South Carolina, Iowa, Nevada, and Arizona.

On July 2, 2008, Steve Schmidt was given "full operational control" of McCain's campaign. Schmidt had managed Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2006 re-election and was a top Dick Cheney aide. Rick Davis was the previous campaign manager. He was previously the campaign's chief executive and changed position when John Weaver, McCain's chief aide, and Terry Nelson, his campaign manager, resigned on July 11, 2007. Davis was campaign manager during McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, when Weaver had been McCain's chief campaign strategist.

Other top staffers include McCain's former chief of staff Mark Salter and long-time political strategist Charlie Black who worked for Reagan, both Bushes and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Former Bush advisor Mark McKinnon also worked for the campaign before leaving in May 2008 to avoid working against Barack Obama. Jill Hazelbaker is the campaign's chief spokeswoman. McCain's press secretary is Melissa Shuffield.

Neoconservative pundit Bill Kristol, currently an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, serves as a foreign policy advisor. Randy Scheunemann, a board member of the Project for the New American Century, was hired in January 2007 as McCain's foreign-policy aide. He is currently top advisor for security and international issues. Douglas Holtz-Eakin is a senior policy adviser and Nicolle Wallace is senior adviser on message.

By a few weeks prior to making his announcement on Letterman, McCain was already beginning to trail behind former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani in the polls, a situation attributed to his steadfast support for the Iraq War troop surge of 2007.

In March 2007, with considerable press attention and in hopes of reigniting his efforts, McCain brought back the "Straight Talk Express" campaign bus that he had used to much positive effect in his outsider run in 2000. Like many candidates, McCain has taken to the internet in order to help boost his campaign; appealing to younger audiences by creating Facebook and MySpace pages, along with an account on Youtube.

McCain supported the Iraq War troop surge of 2007 proposed by President George W. Bush. On March 28, 2007, McCain said that, "General Petraeus goes out almost every day in an unarmed humvee". On March 29, CNN's John Roberts reported, "I checked with General Petraeus’s people overnight and they said he never goes out in anything less than an up-armored humvee." On the same day, McCain also said that, "There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today... The US is beginning to succeed in Iraq." On the same day, retired U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey issued a report saying, “... no Iraqi government official, coalition soldier, diplomat, reporter could walk the streets of Baghdad without heavily armed protection”.

On April 1, 2007, McCain and other lawmakers visited a Baghdad market and claimed that "things are better and there are encouraging signs". The visit was accompanied by enormous security measures, as McCain himself wore a bullet-proof vest, and was surrounded by more than 100 troops and escorted by attack helicopters. The day after McCain's visit, 21 workers and children from the market were killed in a suicide bombing.

In May 2007, it was reported that McCain had missed 42 consecutive votes (five straight weeks) in the Senate while he was conducting his presidential campaign. From March to May, McCain only attended three floor votes in the Senate, though none of McCain's missed votes has altered a bill's fate. According to Washington Post statistics, McCain missed more votes than any Senator including Tim Johnson, who missed many votes after suffering a brain hemorrhage in December 2006. As of August 2008, McCain had missed 63.8% of votes in the 110th Congress during his campaign. Being in the majority, Senate Democrats could sometimes delay votes in order to accommodate the schedules of Democratic presidential candidates.

As early as 2005, McCain conducted bipartisan efforts with fellow Senator Ted Kennedy to create a bill — the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act — that would change America's immigration policy and provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country. Later McCain championed the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007.

In an interview in June 2007, potential candidate Fred Thompson criticized Reagan's immigration policy of 1986, saying: "Twelve million illegal immigrants later, we are now living in a nation that is beset by people who are suicidal maniacs and want to kill countless innocent men, women and children around the world. We're sitting here now with essentially open borders." McCain responded,"I travel around the country extensively and that's certainly not the impression I have. I have not detected a nation full of suicidal maniacs." A Thompson spokesman said he was not calling immigrants "suicidal maniacs" but rather saying that terrorists could infiltrate the borders.

In June 2007, McCain drew some criticism for dropping out of the August Iowa Straw Poll. Some Republican officials felt the move could be seen as "dissing Iowa." In response, a man in a chicken suit, known as the Iowa Chicken, began demonstrating at McCain's appearances in Iowa and carrying a sign reading "you balked at the straw poll." Despite this, McCain maintained that he was still planning on competing in the Iowa Caucus. Some political observers have opined that the Straw Poll results are bought by campaigns.

However, polls taken in June showed that McCain's Iowa support had dropped to the single digits, from the mid-20s to 6%.

McCain's second quarter 2007 fundraising results and campaign financials were poor. Both McCain supporters and political observers pointed to McCain's support for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, very unpopular among the Republican base electorate, as a primary cause of his fundraising problems.

Large-scale campaign staff downsizing took place in early July, with 50 to 100 staffers let go and others taking pay cuts or switching to no pay. McCain's aides said the campaign was considering taking public matching funds, and would focus its efforts on the early primary and caucus states. McCain however said he was not considering dropping out of the race.

Fellow Senator, but Immigration Reform Act opponent, Tom Coburn wrote a piece for National Review praising McCain for showing great political courage in sticking behind the Act even though it was damaging his presidential hopes.

Campaign shakeups reached the top level on July 10, 2007, when campaign manager Terry Nelson and campaign chief strategist John Weaver both departed. Another senior aide and co-author of McCain's books, Mark Salter, reduced his role in the campaign as well (he would later return to a full role). McCain's co-chair for his Florida campaign, State Rep Bob Allen, was arrested on July 11, 2007, on charges of sexual sollicitation (prostitution). In addition, on July 16, 2007, nine members of McCain's staff, including Brian Jones, McCain's communications director, and two deputies, Matt David and Danny Diaz, announced their resignations.

Following the upheaval, the new McCain campaign put out a plan for how to continue on. Entitled "Living Off the Land: A Plan for Financial Viability", it called for expenses to be greatly cut and for McCain to take advantage of free media such as debates and sponsored events. McCain would focus on the early caucus and primary states, instead of trying to run a nationally-scoped effort, would try to "win debates and outperform other candidates," and thereby regain momentum and recapture the faith of potential donors.

McCain's strategy was hampered by several other events within the Republicans dominating the political discussion in the ensuing months: Fred Thompson's entry into the race in early September; the focus in debates over battles between Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney; and the discussion over the impact of Romney's religion. Mike Huckabee's sudden surge from the second tier into near-frontrunner status dominated much of the news in November and December 2007. Nevertheless, McCain persevered, riding his "Straight Talk Express" bus through New Hampshire and, as in the past, granting reporters and bloggers far more direct access than would other campaigns.

In the final months before the caucuses and primaries began, McCain had still not nearly reclaimed his previous front-runner status. However, the Republican race was quite unsettled, with none of the top-tier candidates dominating the race and all of them possessing major vulnerabilities. Huckabee's ascendence was damaging to Romney, as they traded shots during the days leading up to the Iowa caucuses. Romney and Huckabee put much of their early efforts into Iowa, making the caucus particularly crucial for each of them. Giuliani's campaign was suffering from conflicts regarding strategy, damaging revelations about his personal life and the federal indictment of longtime ally and friend Bernard Kerik. Thompson's campaign had not gained momentum after his late entry to the race and had been described as "lackluster". Through November, McCain had put little effort into Iowa, instead focusing on New Hampshire, where he had staged a big win in his 2000 campaign. By mid-December McCain had climbed back to second place in some New Hampshire polls, and also hoped to benefit from independents, who are able to vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary. Political observers also saw McCain as the "second choice" of many voters, one who could benefit from the troubles of Romney and Giuliani in particular.

McCain's candidacy in New Hampshire was bolstered by a December 2 endorsement from the often-influential New Hampshire Union Leader. This was followed by an endorsement from The Boston Globe, which is circulated within New Hampshire, on December 15. He was endorsed by the smaller Portsmouth Herald on December 16, and by the Boston Herald on December 20. The Boston Herald endorsement prompted McCain to state in an ad that "Romney's hometown newspaper says the choice is clear: John McCain". These coincided with an unusual national candidate-level, cross-party endorsement of McCain by 2000 Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Lieberman on December 16; the McCain camp hoped that this would help him appeal to independent voters in New Hampshire. McCain also won the endorsement of the influential Des Moines Register in Iowa, which surprised even McCain because he had not focused many resources on the state, and because of his opposition to federal subsidies for ethanol - a favorite issue of Iowan farmers. By a few days before Christmas, there were multiple press reports of a "McCain surge", with poll numbers improving both in early states — including Iowa — and nationwide. The New Hampshire resurgence was further confirmed by Romney now changing the focus of his criticisms from Giuliani to McCain. By the time the Concord Monitor endorsed him on December 29, over twenty New Hampshire papers, large and small, had given him their nods. Some political analysts cautioned that even if the McCain campaign staged some surprise early showings or victories, it was still short on the money and ground organization necessary to exploit a breakthrough. Conservative columnist Robert Novak, though, predicted on December 27 that if McCain could win New Hampshire, he would be the favorite to "sweep through subsequent primaries despite meager finances and organization". Novak also stated that McCain is seen by Republican insiders as the "best bet" to win the nomination and the candidate most likely to defeat a Democrat in the November general election.

When the close proximity of the first contests to the holidays prompted many candidates to release Christmas videos — allowing them to continue presenting their messages, but in more seasonal settings — McCain chose one which told his Good Samaritan story of a POW camp guard in North Vietnam who undid his torture ropes for a night and then later drew a cross in the dirt for him on Christmas Day.

The December 27 assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto drew responses from all of the major candidates. McCain, a longtime member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called attention to his foreign policy experience, as well as his personal interaction with Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf. He also drew a contrast with his main Republican rivals, who did not have experience in foreign policy matters. Many observers saw McCain as the candidate most likely to benefit from a heightened focus on international events.

The first vote of the 2008 election season took place in the Iowa caucuses on January 3, 2008. McCain came in fourth place, with 13.1% of the vote. Mike Huckabee was the winner with 34%. Because McCain, unlike Romney and Huckabee, had not focused on Iowa early, his campaign officials said they were satisfied with his placement. Many political observers considered Huckabee's easy win a blow to Romney, McCain's main rival in New Hampshire. Romney spent about five times as much as Huckabee on advertising in Iowa.

The New Hampshire primaries came only five days after Iowa. McCain's rising New Hampshire poll numbers indicated that he could benefit from Romney's poor Iowa showing. McCain participated in a January 5 debate along with Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, Thompson and Paul. The debate particularly highlighted differences between McCain and Romney, as the two traded shots on the immigration issue. Polls in the days leading up to the vote showed McCain leading Romney in a tight race, and all candidates campaigned in the state in the days following the Iowa vote. McCain held over 100 of his signature town hall-style meetings in the state, in many cases repeating visits that he had made during his successful 2000 primary there. Despite McCain's resurgence, his campaign was still strapped for funds: top-level staff was working without paychecks, commercials were being prepared at cost, and event mailers were only a quarter of what he was able to send out in his 2000 campaign.

With different winners in Iowa and New Hampshire - and Mitt Romney taking the lower-profile Wyoming caucus - the January 15 Michigan primary loomed as an important battle, despite the state's delegation size being cut in half for holding the primary too early. Polls after New Hampshire showed a tight race between McCain and Romney, with Huckabee a close third. Many saw Michigan as Romney's last chance for a campaign-saving win after disappointments in the first two races. Others said that a win in Michigan could cement McCain's status as the "front-runner" for the nomination. McCain's campaign garnered about $1 million in newly contributed funds immediately after the New Hampshire win, but still had $3.5 million in bank debt. He was not alone in feeling a financial pinch; the entire Republican field suffered from a lack of enthusiasm and lower donations than the Democratic candidates were receiving.

Nevertheless, some polls showed McCain getting a significant national bounce from his New Hampshire win; the January 11 CNN nationwide poll had him leading with 34 percent support, a 21-point increase from where he had been just a month before. As the Michigan race entered its final days, McCain gained some notoriety by sending out mailers there and in South Carolina attacking Romney's tax record and touting his own. A Romney campaign spokesman called the ad "as sloppy as it is factually incorrect", and FactCheck.org called the piece "misleading". McCain responded by saying, "It's not negative campaigning. I think it's what his record is." "It's a tough business," he added.

In the end, McCain finished second in the primary behind Romney, gaining 30 percent of the vote to Romney's 39 percent.

The campaign then moved towards the January 19 South Carolina primary, the state which effectively ended McCain's 2000 campaign for President. Unlike 2000, McCain had the support of much of the state Republican establishment, both in terms of endorsements and campaign staff support. Nevertheless a bit of 2000 surfaced when a group of unknown size called "Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain" set up a website and began sending crude mailers to media members alleging that McCain passed military information to the North Vietnamese during his time as a POW. McCain set up a Truth Squad to combat such attacks and emphasized that he was supported by 75 former POWs. Orson Swindle, who was a POW with McCain, called the flier a "vicious" fraud. "Nothing could be further from the truth," Swindle said. "I know because I was there. The truth is, the North Vietnamese offered John McCain early release, and he refused." After that, however, there was little in the way of dirty tricks during the rest of the campaign.

McCain won the South Carolina primary on January 19, gaining 33% of the vote compared to second-place finisher Mike Huckabee's 30%, winning groups he usually did well with, such as veterans and seniors, and doing well enough with other groups, such as evangelicals. In his victory remarks to supporters that evening, he said, "It took us awhile, but what's eight years among friends?," noting the reversal of fortune from his 2000 defeat there. Indeed, The New York Times described McCain's win as "exorcising the ghosts of the attack-filled primary here that derailed his presidential hopes eight years ago." Pundits credited third-place finisher Fred Thompson with drawing votes from Huckabee in South Carolina, thereby giving a narrow victory to McCain.

The Nevada caucus the same day drew less attention from Republican candidates, although the state had 31 delegates at stake compared to South Carolina's 24. McCain did not seriously compete in Nevada, and finished third with 13% of the vote, finishing behind both Romney and Ron Paul.

The race then moved to the January 29 Florida primary. This would be a test for McCain among core Republican voters, as unlike New Hampshire and South Carolina, independents and Democrats would not be able to vote in the Republican primary. McCain, Giuliani and Romney were closely matched in pre-election polls, and the contest was seen as important to each campaign, as it was the last primary before Super Tuesday, when 41% of the total delegates were up for grabs. It was also the first time that Rudy Giuliani would seriously compete for delegates since a partial effort in New Hampshire, and the first primary after Fred Thompson withdrew his candidacy.

A January 24 debate at Florida Atlantic University was sedate, with none of the candidates attacking each other and economics the predominant theme. By the next day, however, McCain and Romney were going at each other, with McCain accusing Romney of having once advocated timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, and Romney saying that was untrue — an assessment shared by news organizations, which labeled McCain's charge as misleading — and demanding an apology. Certain statements dogged McCain. NBC News' Tim Russert during a debate raised a McCain quote in which McCain said, "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." Romney seized on these and declared that he, not McCain, was the right choice to lead the country during times of economic uncertainty. On the day before the vote, McCain slammed Romney for flip-flopping, while Romney released a "top ten list" of times McCain had attacked fellow Republicans. Both candidates used the ultimate Republican insult, calling each other a liberal. Overall, McCain was outspent by Romney on Florida television ads by a 3-to-1 margin. Conservative talk radio continued to hammer McCain, with Laura Ingraham saying she was "concerned about the mental stability of the McCain campaign" and Mark Levin continuing his practice of calling him "John McLame".

As the election neared, Giuliani slumped to a battle for third place with Huckabee, while McCain and Romney each had polls showing them in the lead. McCain garnered the late endorsements of Florida Senator and former Chairman of the Republican National Committee Mel Martinez and the highly popular Governor of Florida, Charlie Crist; Crist had reportedly pledged his support to Giuliani, and the Giuliani campaign was described as "visibly upset" by the McCain endorsement.

On January 29 McCain won the Florida primary and the state's 57 delegates, taking 36% of the total vote. Romney was second with 31% and Giuliani was third at 15%.

After Florida, the campaigns focused their attention on the 21 states voting on February 5, known as Super Tuesday. McCain was seen as the front-runner for the nomination heading in to this most important of primary dates. He had the lead in delegates to the national convention, and on January 30 he was officially endorsed by the withdrawing Giuliani. The candidates sparred at a debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California on January 30, with former First Lady Nancy Reagan present in the front row. The most heated exchange came as Romney accused McCain of dirty tricks in his misleading Florida statements about Romney having proposed an Iraq withdrawal timetable.

McCain won his home state of Arizona, taking all 53 of the state's delegates, and won too the largest of the Super Tuesday prizes, garnering nearly all of California's 173 delegates. McCain also scored wins in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Oklahoma.

Both McCain and Romney addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC on February 7. Romney used his speech to announce the end of his campaign, solidifying McCain's status as the likely Republican nominee. McCain spoke about an hour later, again appealing to conservative uncertainty about his ideology. He focused on his opposition to abortion and gun control, as well as his support for lower taxes and free-market health care solutions. He told the CPAC audience that he arrived in Washington as "a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution", and addressed the issue of illegal immigration - one of the major issues where conservatives have attacked McCain. He said that "it would be among my highest priorities to secure our borders first", before addressing other immigration laws.

February 9 saw voting in Louisiana, Kansas and Washington state. Huckabee won an easy victory in Kansas, claiming all 36 of the state's delegates to the national convention. Only 14,016 votes were cast, and the McCain campaign expressed no concern over the lightly attended caucus. However, social conservatives had a strong presence in the Kansas Republican party, and the results served to highlight conservative dissatisfaction with the Senator. Louisiana was much closer, but Huckabee won there as well, beating McCain by less than one percentage point. McCain was declared the winner of the Washington caucuses, where 18 delegates were at stake. The February 19 primary would determine the other 19 delegates from the state. After the caucuses, Huckabee's campaign indicated that they would challenge the results.

Next up was the Potomac primary on February 12, with voting in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. McCain swept the three races and took all 113 delegates which were at stake. The next day, the McCain camp released a memo calling a Huckabee win "mathematically impossible". McCain began to focus on the Democrats, particularly leading candidate Barack Obama, in anticipation of the general election.

On February 14, Mitt Romney officially endorsed McCain. Huckabee vowed to stay in the race, saying, "I may get beat, but I’m not going to quit." A few days later, McCain was endorsed by former President George H.W. Bush, in a move intended to shore up his support among base party elements.

On February 19, McCain continued his winning ways, picking up wins over Huckabee in the Wisconsin primary and the Washington state primary. McCain and Barack Obama engaged in a pointed exchange over Al-Qaeda in Iraq on February 27.

On February 20, 2008, The New York Times broke a story involving an alleged romantic affair eight years earlier between McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman, both of whom deny the allegations. The relationship allegedly existed during McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. In separate interviews with The New York Times, two unnamed former associates of McCain said they "became convinced" that a romantic relationship existed and warned him that he was risking his campaign and his political career. Both said McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and that he pledged to keep his distance from Iseman. The associates said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others.

A McCain spokesperson characterized the story as a "hit and run smear campaign" and "gutter politics" and went on to say, "It is a shame that the New York Times has lowered its standards " Iseman's employer, Lowell Paxson, disputed McCain's assertion that he had never met with Paxson over an Federal Communications Commission matter mentioned in the original New York Times article. The article received widespread criticism among both liberals and conservatives, McCain supporters and non-supporters as well as talk radio personalities. Former staffer to President Bill Clinton and current Hillary Clinton supporter Lanny Davis said the article "had no merit." Stating that he did not support McCain's bid for the White House, Davis, who had himself lobbied for the same cause Iseman lobbied McCain for, said that McCain only wrote a letter to the FCC to ask them to "act soon" and refused to write a letter that supported the sale of the television station the article talked about.

In December 2008, Iseman filed a $27 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, alleging that the paper falsely communicated an illicit romantic relationship between her and McCain.

John McCain officially clinched the Republican presidential nomination on March 4, 2008, sweeping the primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island, and Vermont. That night, Mike Huckabee withdrew from the race and endorsed McCain.

The McCain campaign focused on many issues. These issues included national security, education reform, energy independence, and tax cuts to stimulate the economy.

Article Two of the Constitution sets one of the principal qualifications to be eligible for election of the office of President as being a natural born citizen of the United States. Although McCain was not born within a state of the United States, his status as a natural-born citizen (and future eligibility to be elected to the presidency) may have been assured at birth by either jus sanguinis, since his parents were U.S. citizens, or jus soli, as the Panama Canal Zone was at that time (1936) a United States possession (1903–1979), or both. However, Internet talk questioned whether McCain, who was born at Coco Solo Naval Air Station in Panama, qualified as a natural-born citizen. A bipartisan legal review by Laurence Tribe and Theodore Olson, as well as a unanimous but nonbinding Senate resolution, indicate that McCain does indeed fulfill the requirement. However, University of Arizona constitutional law professor Gabriel J. Chin argues both that the Tribe-Olson opinion is unsound under current law and that McCain was actually granted citizenship by a law which was passed eleven months after McCain's birth, disqualifying him under the Constitution from natural-born citizenship and the Presidency. Commenting on the Chin paper, Temple University law and citizenship expert Peter Spiro said, “No court will get close to it, and everyone else is on board, so there’s a constitutional consensus, the merits of arguments such as this one aside.” Catholic University law professor Sarah Duggan agreed that no legal challenge would prevail, but said only a constitutional amendment could fully resolve the question. A lawsuit by an American Independent Party member challenging McCain's eligibility was dismissed by a federal judge in San Francisco in September 2008 due both to lack of evidence and lack of standing.

On March 5, 2008 President Bush welcomed McCain to the White House and officially endorsed the man who would be his party's standard-bearer in November. The endorsement was seen as helping McCain rally conservatives, and brought with it the promise of much-needed fundraising help heading in to the general election. Democrats painted a different picture, hoping to capitalize on Bush's low approval ratings. The Democratic National Committee said that McCain would offer a "third term of George W. Bush".

McCain turned his attention to the November general election, while the Democratic primaries continued to be a battle between Clinton and Obama. McCain faced the challenge of staying in the news as the Democrats garnered headlines with their protracted nomination battle, which showed no signs of ending before the Democratic National Convention in late August. However, having the nomination locked up early also gave McCain time to build a national organization and put his general election strategy into action for the six months leading up to the Republican National Convention. McCain planned to raise money and visit several sites in the U.S. before embarking on a tour of Europe and the Middle East as part of a congressional delegation. McCain did not immediately indicate when he would make his choice for Vice President. Even before his March 4 primary wins, McCain indicated that he would campaign "everywhere" in the general election - including traditionally Democratic states like California, New Jersey and Connecticut. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released March 12 showed McCain in a virtual tie with both Obama and Clinton in hypothetical November matchups. In an attempt to make up for his fundraising disadvantage in relation to the Democratic candidates, the campaign merged its resources with the Republican National Committee, and named former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina head of the "Victory 2008" committee charged with fundraising and Get Out The Vote efforts. The campaign also announced that it would use an unorthodox organizational structure, opting to have several regional campaign directors rather than one centralized staff.

McCain began his overseas trip on March 16, arriving in Baghdad to meet with U.S. military officials as well as Iraqi political leaders. While the campaign was not involved in the trip, which was official Senate business, it served as a chance for McCain to highlight his credentials in foreign affairs, seen to be the main strength of his candidacy. After Iraq, the group planned to travel to Israel, London and Paris.

Polls released later in March showed McCain ahead of both Clinton and Obama in hypothetical general election matchups. Both leads were above the margin of error in the polls by Zogby International and Rasmussen Reports.

A boost to McCain's campaign came on March 25, when former First Lady Nancy Reagan endorsed the Senator at her home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California. Reagan released a statement, reading, "John McCain has been a good friend for over thirty years. My husband and I first came to know him as a returning Vietnam War POW, and were impressed by the courage he had shown through his terrible ordeal. I believe John’s record and experience have prepared him well to be our next president.” Standing with Reagan, McCain said, "This is an important, most important kind of expression of confidence in my ability to lead the party that I could have." McCain's friendship with Nancy Reagan had survived a period of coldness following his divorce from his first wife Carol, whom the Reagans were quite fond of.

On March 31, McCain began a "biographical tour", visiting several places that were key to his early life and military career.

In early April, McCain said he had compiled a list of roughly 20 potential running mates, and that he hoped to have selected a Vice President well before the Republican Convention in September.

Foreign policy and the Iraq War were again in the campaign spotlight on April 8, 2008. McCain questioned General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, during the latter's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. McCain told the committee that a promise of withdrawal would be "reckless" and a "failure of moral and political leadership." While McCain was supportive of Petraeus, he questioned the general on recent outbreaks of violence and some failures among the Iraqi military.

Despite the earlier opposition from conservatives, in April 2008, there were signs that the Republican Party base was coalescing behind McCain's candidacy. A CBS News/New York Times poll showed that McCain was viewed favorably by 78 percent of conservatives, and unfavorably by only 18 percent. This was the same percentage who had an unfavorable opinion of George W. Bush at the same time in 2000. On May 5, 2008 the McCain Campaign announced the launch of a Spanish language site call Bienvenidos McCain or "McCain Welcomes." It presents the candidates positions and appeals in Spanish.

During a May 15 speech in Columbus, Ohio, McCain laid out his vision for January 2013, which would be the end of his first term granted he won the presidency. He predicted that the Iraq War would be won by that time, and that most American troops would be out of the country. He pledged a bipartisan approach to governing a robust economy as well, and the implementation of a flat tax rate.

After the new rules were issued, two campaign staffers, regional campaign manager Doug Davenport and Republican National Convention chief Doug Goodyear, both of whom had represented the Burmese military government, departed. So too did Eric Burgeson, who had lobbied the U.S. government on energy issues. Republican political consultant Craig Shirley left the campaign due to ties with anti-Hillary Clinton group Stop Her Now. National finance co-chair Tom Loeffler left the campaign due to his lobbying group's work for Saudi Arabia and other foreign countries. Other top campaign staff such as campaign manager Rick Davis (who devised the new rules), strategist Charles Black, and foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann, had already stopped such activities and remained with the campaign. McCain was criticized by Campaign Money Watch and MoveOn.org for retaining Black, but Public Citizen came to McCain's defense, saying that "Regardless of how many lobbyists are working on his campaign or raising money for him, John McCain has fought for 14 long, hard years for reforms that seriously limit lobbyists' power." Some other lobbyists and academics said that despite highly-publicized abuses, lobbyists were an important part of the governmental process, and that the campaign-time criticisms and reactions were grandstanding. Meanwhile, outside Republicans feared the lobbying rules activities were hampering the McCain campaign, which was lagging in organizational and fundraising progress.

As of May 19, 2008, McCain had at least 134 lobbyists involved with his campaign, either directly or as fundraisers.

Barack Obama became the Democratic presumptive nominee on June 3. McCain immediately proposed a series of ten joint town hall meetings with him, at which the two could engage each other, beginning the next week. Obama first agreed in principle to the notion, but later rejected McCain's proposal, offering instead one town-hall event on the Independence Day holiday and four traditional debate-style joint appearances. McCain, in turn, rejected that proposal saying that Americans would pay less attention to the town-hall appearance due to the holiday. He was quoted as having said, "I want the American people to have the exposure to a number of town hall meetings, not just one." Following the exchange, former first lady Nancy Reagan as well as Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, daughters of former President Lyndon B. Johnson, invited both McCain and Obama to town-hall appearances at the Reagan and Johnson presidential libraries. McCain accepted the invitation, though the candidates never reached agreement on the event formats.

Following Obama's victory over Hillary Clinton, and taking advantage of a divide within the Democratic Party, McCain encouraged Clinton supporters to abandon their party and vote for him in November. The McCain campaign viewed the Democratic divide as an opportunity to court the "Reagan Democrats" who supported Clinton, and has begun sending high-profile, female supporters to states that Clinton won in an effort to garner their votes.

Former Senator Phil Gramm was a co-chairman of the McCain campaign, and McCain's chief economic adviser. He stepped down from the campaign on July 18, 2008, about a week after he made remarks to The Washington Times about the nation's economic conditions. Gramm had said, "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," and "We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining." McCain had quickly repudiated Gramm's remarks, saying "Phil Gramm doesn’t speak for me, I speak for me. I strongly disagree." When asked if Gramm was still in contention for the U.S. Treasury Secretary position as previously speculated, McCain had said, "I think Senator Gramm would be in serious consideration for ambassador of Belarus, though I’m not sure the citizens of Minsk would welcome that." Gramm said upon leaving that he had become a distraction to the campaign.

McCain began a search for a running mate to join the Republican ticket after clinching the Republican nomination. Former candidates Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were mentioned as possibilities, as were many other leaders in the Republican Party and the business world. Over Memorial Day weekend, McCain invited Mitt Romney, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to his Sedona, Arizona ranch for informal get-togethers intended to assess personal chemistry for possible running mate selection.

McCain then announced plans to reveal his running mate the day following the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention, and just a few days before the start of the Republican National Convention. During the running mate deliberations, McCain had favored Lieberman. But the opposition from social conservatives, who objected to Lieberman's pro-choice views, was too strong. McCain wanted someone who would shake up the race and reinforce his image as a maverick, so he decided against more conventional choices on his short list, including Romney, Governor Tim Pawlenty, and Tom Ridge.

On August 29, at the Nutter Center of Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, McCain's running mate was revealed in a surprise pick as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. McCain hoped that Palin's youth, reformist record, appeal to social conservatives, and appeal to disaffected Hillary Clinton voters would outweigh her lack of national and international visibility and experience.

At the 2008 Republican National Convention, McCain was formally nominated by roll call on the night of September 3, following Palin's vice-presidential acceptance speech. McCain himself appeared onstage at the convention for the first time following her speech, telling the cheering delegates, "Don't you think we made the right choice for the next vice president of the United States?" McCain accepted his party's nomination the following night.

According to Nielsen Media Research, almost 39 million Americans watched McCain deliver his acceptance speech, while 37 million watched Palin the night before. Television viewership was unusually high for both parties' conventions, indicating that the election season was producing compelling drama.

Republicans in Palin's home state, Alaska, had mixed reactions to the news. Alaskan Attorney General Talis Colberg, a Palin appointee, remarked that, "It's wonderful. It was an emotional thing to see the governor walk out with her family and I say, wow, I work for her." Alaskan State Senate President Lyda Green, a Republican who has repeatedly sparred with Palin since she became governor, remarked, "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" Larry Persily, a Palin staffer, and Jim Whitaker, the Republican mayor of Fairbanks, indicated their support of Palin as Governor, but questioned whether she was ready to serve as vice president. Other Alaskan politicians, such as Republican Gail Phillips, expressed surprise.

Palin's positions and policies became the focus of "intense media attention" and "scrutiny" following her selection. Expectations from her speech at the Republican National Convention was heavily covered by the media. Some Republicans argued that Palin was subjected to unreasonable media coverage, and a Rasmussen survey showed that slightly more than half of Americans believed that the press was "trying to hurt" Palin with negative coverage, a sentiment referenced by Palin in her acceptance speech. A poll taken just after the speech found that Palin was then slightly more popular than either Obama or McCain with a 58% favorabilty rating. Palin was also a draw with Catholic voters; the poll found that 54% favor Palin and 42% find her unfavorable, a 12% difference, while Joe Biden was viewed favorable by 49% to 47% unfavorable.

Palin also became a "ubiquitous presence on newsstands," appearing on the cover of both Newsweek and Time, among others. The appearance on the cover of Time was particularly notable as Jay Carney, the newsmagazine's Washington bureau chief, has been vocally critical on what he has said is a lack of media access to Palin, concerns which were dismissed by the McCain campaign.

Former New York City mayor Giuliani said that Palin was more qualified to be president than Democratic presidential nominee Obama, citing Palin's executive experience, saying of her, "She's vetoed legislation, she's taken on corruption, and in her party, and won. She took on the oil companies and won. She administered a budget successfully," and of Obama, "He's never run a city, he's never run a state, he's never run a business, he's never administered a payroll, he's never led people in crisis". He also stated, if Sarah Palin had been president when the U.S. came under attack on Sept. 11, 2001, he’s confident she would have been able to handle the crisis.

According to the Washington Times, Palin's faith has made her a "favorite with the staunchly pro-Israel neoconservative elements in the Republican Party." Palin displays an Israeli flag in her governor's office in Juneau. Palin has received a strong endorsement from the Republican Jewish Coalition, and has been described as a "direct affront to all Jewish Americans" by Democratic Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida, and as being "totally out of step with Jewish public opinion" by the the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Well, I don't know Governor Palin, I have not met her before. I had a brief conversation with her after she was selected to congratulate her and wish her luck - but, not too much luck! - on the campaign trail. And she seems to have a compelling life story. Obviously, she's a fine mother and a up-and-coming public servant. So, it's too early for me to gauge what kind of running mate she'll be. My sense is that she subscribes to John McCain's agenda. And ultimately, this is going to be about where I want to take the country and where Joe Biden wants to take the country, and where John McCain and his running mate want to take the country.

As of September, Governor Palin had submitted to two media interviews, the first with ABC's Charles Gibson, and the second with Fox News's Sean Hannity. Gibson asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?," to which Palin responded, "In what respect, Charlie?" After asking Palin for her definition, Gibson defined the concept to be for the United States to "have the right of anticipatory self-defense." Gibson also asked Palin about a prayer she had offered with regard to soldiers in Iraq. Commentators' reactions varied. Those generally critical of Palin's candidacy applauded Gibson's penetrating questions and thought aspects of Palin's responses showed that she was not ready to serve as Vice President, whereas those generally supportive of her candidacy took a more positive view of her performance.

After McCain announced Palin as his running mate, Newsweek and Time put Palin on their magazine covers, as some of the media alleged that McCain's campaign was restricting press access to Palin by allowing only three one-on-one interviews and no press conferences with her. Among the reasons that the news organizations criticized the restrictions was Palin's first major interview, with Charles Gibson of ABC News, met with mixed reviews. Her interview five days later with Fox News's Sean Hannity focuses on many of the same questions from Gibson's interview. However, Palin's performance in her third interview, with Katie Couric of CBS News, was widely criticized, prompting a decline in her poll numbers, concern among Republicans that she was becoming a political liability, and calls from some conservative commentators for Palin to resign from the Presidential ticket. Other conservatives remain ardent in their support for Palin, accusing the columnists of elitism. Following this interview, some Republicans, including Mitt Romney and Bill Kristol, questioned the McCain campaign's strategy of sheltering Palin from unscripted encounters with the press.

Palin was reported to have prepared intensively for the October 2 vice-presidential debate with Democratic Vice-Presidential nominee Joe Biden at Washington University in St. Louis. Some Republicans suggested that Palin's performance in the interviews would improve public perceptions of her debate performance by lowering expectations. Polling from CNN, Fox and CBS found that while Palin exceeded most voters' expectations, they felt that Biden had won the debate.

Upon returning to the campaign trail after her debate preparation, Palin stepped up her attacks on the Democratic candidate for President, Senator Barack Obama. At a fundraising event, Palin explained her new aggressiveness, saying, "There does come a time when you have to take the gloves off and that time is right now." In a campaign appearance on October 4, Palin accused Obama of regarding America as "so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country." The accusation referred to Obama's contacts with Bill Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical group called the Weathermen, and a New York Times article describing such contacts. The Obama campaign called the allegation a "smear", citing newspaper commentaries critical of Palin's attack. Obama has condemned the Weathermen's violent actions. The criticism of Obama based on his purported relationship with Ayers was subsequently carried on by McCain himself.

By late October, voter reactions to Palin had grown increasingly negative, especially among independents and other voters concerned about her qualifications. Republican and former US Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell endorsed Obama on October 19 and said of Palin "Now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president." A McCain aide said Palin had "gone rogue", placing her own future political interests ahead of the McCain/Palin ticket, directly contradicting her running mate's positions and disobeying directions from campaign managers.

After the Republican National Convention, McCain saw his poll numbers increase nationwide, with the strongest increase in states in which he already led. From mid-September to mid-October, however, the trend lines were all in Obama's direction. For example, the RealClearPolitics electoral map went from an Obama 228-163 electoral vote lead on August 20 to a 227-207 McCain lead on September 17 and then back to a 306-157 Obama lead on October 24.

In September 2008, the subprime mortgage crisis worsened and precipitated a liquidity crisis; the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was quickly followed by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, sale of Merrill Lynch, and government bailout of American International Group. At first McCain emphasized that "the fundamentals of our economy are strong", but when questioned on that statement he clarified that the fundamentals refer to the American workforce. He then recast his message into emphasizing that the country's economy was in "a total crisis", condemning "greed", and proposing that a national commission be set up to study the situation, akin to the 9/11 Commission. He later commented on the Federal Reserve loan of $85 billion to AIG by saying, "I didn't want to do that...and I don't think anybody I know wanted to do that." McCain then said that government regulators had been "asleep at the switch" and said if he were president he would fire U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Chris Cox.

On September 24, McCain announced that he would "suspend" his campaign and seek to delay a debate with Barack Obama scheduled for September 26 so that he could work with Congress toward a reworking of and agreement on the Paulson financial rescue plan. McCain urged Obama to do the same. McCain's intervention helped dissatisfied House Republicans forestall a bailout plan that was otherwise close to agreement between the White House, Senate Republicans, and Congressional Democrats. Two days later, McCain announced that he would resume his campaign, and he went ahead with the debate. Some commentators questioned whether the campaign had ever in fact been suspended, as McCain ads continued to play, McCain spokesmen continued giving statements criticizing Obama, and McCain campaign offices remained open, while McCain himself continued to make speeches and give interviews. The debate on September 26 took place as scheduled in Oxford, Mississippi, and was moderated by Jim Lehrer.

The revised plan, the $700 billion Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, failed a House vote on September 29, with large-scale opposition from House Republicans. On October 1, a similar bill, HR1424, passed the Senate 74–25 with McCain voting in favor.

A McCain-Palin spokesperson responded saying that the campaign had properly licensed these songs giving them to permission to play them. The music has reportedly been used under blanket licensing, which does not require the artists' permission but still follows proper legal channels and includes royalty payments.

McCain had better success in country music, where top songwriter John Rich wrote the campaign song "Raisin' McCain" in August 2008. He performed it at the closing ceremony of the Republican National Convention and at campaign rallies.

On February 20, 2009, a judge rejected motions made by the legal team for McCain and the Republican National Committee to dismiss the Browne lawsuit which charged possible copyright infringement, false endorsement and violation of Browne’s right of publicity. A hearing was set for late April 2009 to schedule a jury trial.

Tito Muñoz, also known as "Tito the Builder", received substantial media attention for various campaign activities. Muñoz publicly defended Joe Wurzelbacher in front of the media. Muñoz has also campaigned with Sarah Palin. Consequently, Tito Muñoz has received substantial media attention. Muñoz, a Colombian immigrant, is presently a small construction company owner and a United States citizen. He became known for wearing a yellow hard hat with a McCain-Palin bumper sticker and an orange reflector jacket, as well as appearing on television wearing sunglasses. when he attended a campaign rally for John McCain in Leesburg, Virginia. At the rally, he introduced Sarah Palin. He also had a confrontation with reporters. Will Rabbe, of the Independent Film Channel, has posted a video about Muñoz and his interaction with reporters. Five days before the election, Muñoz appeared on Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes. Muñoz told Alan Colmes that he became involved in the 2008 presidential election by giving newspapers “hiding the truth about Obama" a piece of his mind.

In September, McCain appointed William Timmons (a former senior adviser to Vice President George H.W. Bush in 1988, an advisor to Senator Bob Dole in 1996, the founder and chairman emeritus of lobbying firm Timmons and Company, and a former lobbyist for Freddie Mac) as his transition chief.

The Republican National Committee's monthly financial disclosure report for September 2008 showed that US$150,000 had been spent on Palin's wardrobe, hair and makeup as well as clothing and accessories for her family. Campaign finance experts expressed concern about the legality of the spending and the tax implications to Palin. A campaign spokesperson responded saying that the clothing will be donated to charity following the election.

The election took place on November 4, and Barack Obama was projected the winner at about 11:00 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST). McCain delivered his concession speech at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix, Arizona at about 11:20 pm EST. In the end, McCain won 173 electoral college votes to Obama's 365, reflecting McCain's failure to win the key battleground states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and the Democratic Party's upset victories in traditional Republican strongholds such as Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana. McCain gained 46 percent of the nationwide popular vote, compared to Obama's 53 percent.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight. I've always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too. But we both recognize that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation's reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

Commentators praised the speech, using terms such as "gracious and eloquent".

In the wake of the election results, anonymous members of McCain's staff reportedly criticized Palin and her campaign staff's conduct of the campaign. Some of the criticisms were later attributed erroneously to staff at a non-existent think-tank as part of the Martin Eisenstadt hoax.

In campaign post-mortems, top McCain staffers conceded that the Palin rollout to the national media had not gone well. But they generally defended the decision to pick Palin, because the other "game changing" choice of Joe Lieberman would have been politically unacceptable to conservative Republicans at the convention and because there were not many good alternatives available. Regarding McCain having barred using the Jeremiah Wright controversy in ads against Obama, McCain's pollsters said it was the right decision both on the merits and on the politics. McCain himself also defended both the Palin pick and the decision not to attack on the Wright controversy. The staffers agreed that McCain's remark that the “fundamentals of our economy are strong” at the beginning of the financial crisis had been a blunder, and said that the subsequent suspension of the campaign was an attempt to recover from the remark but had led to charges that McCain was erratic.

An average of fifteen national polls taken between October 29 and November 3 showed an average 7.6% lead for McCain's opponent Barack Obama before election day. The poll average was off by 0.3%, with Obama instead gaining only 7.3% more of the popular vote than McCain. The poll average projected McCain would receive 44.5% of the popular vote. He bested this by 1.1%, actually garnering 45.6% of the popular vote.

Poll numbers varied greatly the day before the election and through the election season. This can be attributed to varying polling methods, demographics, and sample sizes between pollsters, amongst other things. Final polls ranged from an 11% advantage for Obama to only a 2% advantage. The most accurate final poll numbers were from Fox News, Ipsos/McClatchy, and CNN/Opinion Research which predicted a 7% advantage for Obama. Rasmussen Reports and Pew Research predicted a 6% advantage.

During the election season, McCain's highest support among an average of national polls was 2.9% on September 8, four days after the end of the 2008 Republican National Convention. Amongst individual polls, before the primary season McCain's highest support was recorded in a Fox News poll conducted between December 5 and December 6 showing a 19% lead. After the primaries, McCain's highest support was recorded in a USA Today/Gallup poll conducted between September 5 and September 7 showing a 10% lead.

Gallup conducted weekly polls of registered voters to measure support among the candidates by political ideology. The last poll conducted before election day, taken between October 27 and November 2, showed 32% of pure Independents supporting McCain, leading Obama's 24% support. McCain's Independent support peaked at 38% the week of September 15 - 21.

Leading up to the day before the general election, the RealClearPolitics electoral map, an average of statewide opinion polls, projected 132 electoral votes for McCain/Palin and an electoral majority of 278 votes for opponents Obama/Biden. 128 electoral votes were considered toss ups. With toss up votes attributed to poll leaders, McCain/Palin were projected to received 200 electoral votes, trailing 338 votes for Obama/Biden.

McCain is projected to receive 173 electoral votes, trailing Obama's 365. As of November 19, 2008, all states have decided their electoral votes. The last state to decide was Missouri, where McCain held a lead of less than 0.1% of the popular vote. With the election already decided, it is doubtful the close results will be contested.

McCain ultimately underperformed his projected electoral vote count with toss up states included. As of November 19, 2008, North Carolina, Indiana, and Nebraska's 2nd congressional district are projected to vote for Obama. Opinion poll averages prior to the election projected these votes for McCain.

An average of four national polls measuring favorable/unfavorable opinions taken between October 31 and November 2 showed an average 52.3% favorable opinion and 41.5% unfavorable opinion of John McCain before election day. Favorable and unfavorable opinions of John McCain varied during the election season, but his favorable opinion remained higher than his unfavorable opinion throughout the duration of the election season according to poll averages. McCain's highest ratings was 57.6% favorable and 35.2% unfavorable on July 13.

Opinions of the 2008 U.S. presidential election and the candidates varied around the world. Those who expressed an opinion favored McCain's opponent. According to Gallup polls conducted worldwide from May to October 2008, 7% of the people in the 73 countries polled supported McCain, compared to 24% who supported Obama. Most (about 70% of those polled) either had no opinion or offered no opinion at all.

An October 29, 2007, study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that through the first five months of 2007, McCain had received the most unfavorable media coverage of any of the major 2008 presidential candidates, with 12 percent of the stories having a favorable tone towards him, 48 percent having an unfavorable tone, and with the balance neutral. In terms of amount of coverage, McCain was the subject of 7 percent of all stories, second-most among Republicans and fourth-most overall. McCain's negative coverage mostly included pessimistic "horse race" stories that focused on his campaign's slippage in national polls and fundraising difficulty; it also included his support for the then-unpopular Iraq troop surge. McCain's campaign went through its near-total collapse soon after the window of this study; the press subsequently focused on a "McCain is dead" story line through the summer, which it was slow to change away from.

By the time the 2008 primary season began, McCain's media coverage had shifted and he was now viewed as a "comeback" story. In addition, McCain returned to his long-standing practice of granting almost unlimited media access to him on this bus; this as well as the notion that he engages in "straight talk" free of political calculation gave him a positive personal sentiment in the press. Reflecting this feeling, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough joked of the media, "I think every last one of them would move to Massachusetts and marry John McCain if they could." Measurements by the University of Navarra indicated that throughout January 2008, McCain's global media attention surged from being a distant third among Republican candidates to being the equal of Romney and Huckabee.

After first-quarter fundraising totals were released in early April, totals showed McCain's $13.6 million lagging behind rivals in the race. He spent more than $8 million in campaign funds during the first quarter, leaving him with $5.2 million in the bank and $1.8 million in debts. McCain exceeded 51,000 individual donors, more than rivals Giuliani, with 28,356, and Romney, with 36,538. However, McCain was worried at the high "burn rate" of money used during the first quarter and retooled his entire financial operations after the reports came back.

McCain's second-quarter fundraising totals were worse, with intake falling to $11.2 million and expenses continuing such that only $2 million cash was on hand. McCain's aides said the campaign was considering taking public matching funds There are some indications that although the campaign has $2 million cash on hand at the end of Q2, a 7-figure debt will make the monetary situation even more dire.

As of September 30, 2007, John McCain had raised $32,124,785 for his campaign for presidency. Private donors have given $30,183,761 toward his campaign, PACs have given $458,307, and $1,482,717 has come from other sources. 70% of the PAC contributions have come from business groups, 1% from labor groups, and the final 29% from ideological organizations. So far 95.6% of his finances have been disclosed, while 4.4% has not.

McCain was the first candidate to accept financing from the presidential election campaign fund checkoff.

During the campaign's summer 2007 financial woes, it used a list of donors as collateral in order to get approval on a bank loan. This raised the question of whether the campaign's privacy policy was violated by such a use. A McCain spokesperson said it did not, since all of the campaign's assets were pledged as collateral at the time, not just the donor list.

By December 2007, McCain was using 32 lobbyists as fundraisers, more than any other candidate.

Although McCain accepted public financing for the general election campaign, and the restrictions that go with it, his opponent did not, and McCain criticized Obama for becoming the first major party candidate in history to opt out of public financing.

The McCain campaign received US$7 million in contributions in a single day after announcing Palin as the presumptive vice-presidential nominee.

Nevertheless, down the stretch run of the general election campaign, McCain was outspent by Obama by a four-to-one margin. In the end, from September 1 to the end of the campaign, McCain spent directly the $84 million alloted to him by the public financing rules, while Obama, having opted out of that system, spent $315 million directly during the same period.

McCain has gained the endorsements of many high profile figures and organizations, including President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former President George H. W. Bush, former First Lady Nancy Reagan, and the National Rifle Association.

An endorsement by Texas pastor John Hagee stirred controversy due to past remarks, which some alleged to be anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish. McCain initially sought and accepted Hagee's endorsement, but on April 20, 2008 he described accepting the endorsement as a mistake. He formally rejected the endorsement on May 22, 2008, following news reports of a sermon Hagee gave in the 1990s alleging that Adolf Hitler driving the Jewish people from Europe was "God's will" as it was part of a divine plan to gather Jews in the Holy Land. McCain condemned Hagee's sermon as "crazy and unacceptable".

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