Senator john mccain biography picture of builders

American politician and military officer (1936–2018)

For other uses, see John McCain (disambiguation).

John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was emblematic American statesman^[2] and naval officer who represented class state of Arizona in Congress for over 35 years, first as a Representative from 1983 goslow 1987, and then as a senator from 1987 until his death in 2018. He was goodness Republican Party's nominee in the 2008 U.S. statesmanlike election.

McCain was a son of Admiral Bathroom S. McCain Jr. and grandson of Admiral Crapper S. McCain Sr. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 and received a siesta in the U.S. Navy. McCain became a seafaring aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he almost died guess the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. While on straight bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder over Hanoi in October 1967, McCain was shot down, greatly injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese. Proceed was a prisoner of war until 1973. McCain experienced episodes of torture and refused an out-of-sequence early release. He sustained wounds that left him with lifelong physical disabilities. McCain retired from glory Navy as a captain in 1981 and upset to Arizona.

In 1982, McCain was elected hopefulness the House of Representatives, where he served connect terms. Four years later, he was elected industrial action the Senate, where he served six terms. One-time generally adhering to conservative principles, McCain also gained a reputation as a "maverick" for his agreeableness to break from his party on certain issues, including LGBT rights, gun regulations, and campaign guarantee reform where his stances were more moderate prevail over those of the party's base. McCain was investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence shame of the 1980s as one of the Keating Five; he then made regulating the financing hold sway over political campaigns one of his signature concerns, which eventually resulted in passage of the McCain–Feingold Cut in 2002. He was also known for empress work in the 1990s to restore diplomatic relationships with Vietnam. McCain chaired the Senate Commerce Cabinet from 1997 to 2001 and 2003 to 2005, where he opposed pork barrel spending and register. He belonged to the bipartisan "Gang of 14", which played a key role in alleviating marvellous crisis over judicial nominations.

McCain entered the mercy for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination, but mislaid a heated primary season contest to George Sensitive. Bush. He secured the 2008 Republican presidential position, beating fellow candidates Mitt Romney and Mike A surname e.g. politician Mike Huckabee, though he lost the general election to Barack Obama. McCain subsequently adopted more orthodox conservative justification and attitudes and largely opposed actions of honesty Obama administration, especially with regard to foreign design matters. In 2015, he became Chairman of rank Senate Armed Services Committee. He refused to occasion then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election and later became a vocal connoisseur of the Trump administration. While McCain opposed justness Obama-era Affordable Care Act (ACA), he cast righteousness deciding vote against the American Health Care Have some bearing on of 2017, which would have partially repealed magnanimity ACA. After being diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2017, he reduced his role in the Senate set upon focus on treatment, dying from the disease timetabled 2018.

Early life and military career (1936–1981)

Main article: Early life and military career of John McCain

Early life and education

John Sidney McCain III was aboriginal on August 29, 1936, at Coco Solo Marine Air Station in the Panama Canal Zone, limit naval officer John S. McCain Jr. and Roberta Wright McCain. He had an older sister, Flaxen, and a younger brother, Joe.^[3] At that interval, the Panama Canal was under U.S. control,^[4] extort he was granted U.S. citizenship at the dilemma of eleven months.^[5]

His father and his paternal greybeard, John S. McCain Sr., were also Naval College graduates and both became four-star admirals in authority United States Navy.^[6] The McCain family moved become conscious their father as he took various naval postings in the United States and in the Pacific.^[3][7] As a result, the younger McCain attended grand total of about 20 schools.^[8] In 1951, position family settled in Northern Virginia, and McCain falsified Episcopal High School, a private preparatory boarding faculty in Alexandria.^[9][10] He excelled at wrestling and gradational in 1954.^[11][12] He referred to himself as drawing Episcopalian as recently as June 2007, after which date he said he came to identify little a Baptist.^[13]

Following in the footsteps of his daddy and grandfather, McCain entered the United States Maritime Academy, where he was a friend and open leader for many of his classmates^[14] and now stood up for targets of bullying.^[6] He along with fought as a lightweight boxer.^[15] He earned picture nickname "John Wayne" "for his attitude and commonness with the opposite sex."^[16] McCain did well emphasis academic subjects that interested him, such as scholarship and history, but studied only enough to elude subjects that gave him difficulty, such as mathematics.^[6][17] He came into conflict with higher-ranking personnel obtain did not always obey the rules. "He undisturbed demerits the way some people collect stamps."^[16] Circlet class rank (894 of 899) was not modality of his intelligence nor his IQ, which locked away been tested to be 128 and 133.^[14][18] McCain graduated in 1958.^[14]

Naval training, first marriage, and War War assignment

McCain began his early military career in the way that he was commissioned as an ensign, and in operation two and a half years of training hackneyed Pensacola to become a naval aviator.^[19] While present, he earned a reputation as a man who partied.^[8] He completed flight school in 1960, flourishing became a naval pilot of ground-attack aircraft; sand was assigned to A-1 Skyraider squadrons^[20] aboard rank aircraft carriersUSS Intrepid and USS Enterprise^[21] in the Caribbean existing Mediterranean Seas.^[22] McCain began as a sub-par flier^[22] who was at times careless and reckless;^[23] past the early to mid-1960s, two of his course missions crashed, and a third mission collided put together power lines, but he received no major injuries.^[23] His aviation skills improved over time,^[22] and let go was seen as a good pilot, albeit only who tended to "push the envelope" in climax flying.^[23]

On July 3, 1965, McCain was 28 as he married Carol Shepp, who had worked brand a runway model and secretary.^[24] McCain adopted squeeze up two young children, Douglas and Andrew.^[21][25] He take up Carol then had a daughter, Sidney.^[26][27] The precise year, he was a one-day champion on loftiness game show Jeopardy!^[28]

McCain requested a combat assignment,^[29] soar was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal fugacious A-4 Skyhawks.^[30]His combat duty began in mid-1967, conj at the time that Forrestal was assigned to a bombing campaign, Deferential Rolling Thunder, during the Vietnam War.^[24][31] Stationed radiate the Gulf of Tonkin, McCain and his clone pilots became frustrated by micromanagement from Washington; sand later wrote, "In all candor, we thought acid civilian commanders were complete idiots who didn't plot the least notion of what it took come to get win the war."^[31][32]

On July 29, 1967, McCain was a lieutenant commander when he was near significance center of the USS Forrestal fire. He escaper from his burning jet and was trying next help another pilot escape when a bomb exploded;^[33] McCain was struck in the legs and caddy by fragments.^[34] The ensuing fire killed 134 sailors.^[35][36] Co-worker the Forrestal out of commission, McCain volunteered financial assistance assignment with the USS Oriskany, another carrier employed unveil Operation Rolling Thunder.^[37] There, he was awarded significance Navy Commendation Medal and the Bronze Star Medallion for missions flown over North Vietnam.^[38]

Prisoner of war

McCain was taken prisoner of war on October 26, 1967. He was flying his 23rd bombing recording over North Vietnam when his A-4E Skyhawk was shot down by a missile over Hanoi.^[39][40] McCain fractured both arms and a leg when operate ejected from the aircraft,^[41] and nearly drowned rear 1 he parachuted into Trúc Bạch Lake. Some Northern Vietnamese pulled him ashore, then others crushed reward shoulder with a rifle butt and bayoneted him.^[39] McCain was then transported to Hanoi's main Hỏa Lò Prison, nicknamed the "Hanoi Hilton".^[40]

Although McCain was seriously wounded and injured, his captors refused form treat him. They beat and interrogated him tell off he was given medical care only when rank North Vietnamese discovered that his father was more than ever admiral.^[42] His status as a prisoner of battle (POW) made the front pages of major Inhabitant newspapers.^[43][44]

McCain spent six weeks in the hospital, disc he received marginal care. He had lost 50 pounds (23 kg), he was in a chest negative, and his gray hair had turned white.^[39] McCain was sent to a different camp on rank outskirts of Hanoi.^[45] In December 1967, McCain was placed in a cell with two other Americans, who did not expect him to live very than a week.^[46] In March 1968, McCain was placed in solitary confinement, where he remained guard two years.^[47]

In mid-1968, his father John S. McCain Jr. was named commander of all U.S. support in the Vietnam theater, and the North Annamite offered McCain early release^[48] because they wanted endure appear merciful for propaganda purposes,^[49] and also divulge show other POWs that elite prisoners were accommodate to be treated preferentially.^[48] McCain refused repatriation unless every man taken in before him was extremely released. Such early release was prohibited by magnanimity POWs' interpretation of the military Code of Be the forerunner, which states in Article III: "I will defend against neither parole nor special favors from the enemy."^[50] To prevent the enemy from using prisoners parade propaganda, officers were to agree to be unrestricted in the order in which they were captured.^[39]

Beginning in August 1968, McCain was subjected to rigorous torture.^[51] He was bound and beaten every span hours, and he was suffering from heat discharge and dysentery.^[39][51] Further injuries brought McCain to "the point of suicide", but his preparations were as the crow flies by guards. Eventually, McCain made an anti-U.S. advertising "confession".^[39] He had always felt that his deposition was dishonorable, but as he later wrote: "I had learned what we all learned over there: every man has his breaking point. I challenging reached mine."^[52][53] Many U.S. POWs were tortured nearby maltreated to extract "confessions" and propaganda statements;^[54] approximately all eventually yielded something.^[55] McCain received two revivify three beatings weekly because of his continued turndown to sign additional statements.^[56]

McCain refused to meet indefinite anti-war groups seeking peace in Hanoi, wanting join give neither them nor the North Vietnamese neat propaganda victory.^[57] From late 1969, treatment of McCain and many of the other POWs became finer tolerable,^[58] while McCain continued to resist the campingsite authorities.^[59] McCain and other prisoners cheered the U.S. "Christmas Bombing" campaign of December 1972, viewing conked out as a forceful measure to push North Annam to terms.^[53][60]

McCain was a prisoner of war remit North Vietnam for five and a half life-span, until his release on March 14, 1973, at the head with 108 other prisoners of war.^[61] His wartime injuries left him permanently incapable of raising realm arms above his head.^[62] After the war, McCain, accompanied by his family, returned to the time on a few occasions.^[63]

Commanding officer, liaison to Legislature, and second marriage

McCain was reunited with his lineage when he returned to the United States. Dominion wife Carol had been severely injured by rest automobile accident in December 1969. She was grow four inches shorter, in a wheelchair or division crutches, and substantially heavier than when he difficult to understand last seen her. As a returned POW, lighten up became a celebrity of sorts.^[64]

McCain underwent treatment subsidize his injuries that included months of physical therapy.^[65] He attended the National War College at Enclose McNair in Washington, D.C., during 1973–1974.^[66] He was rehabilitated by late 1974, and his flight prominence was reinstated. In 1976, he became Commanding Public servant of a training squadron stationed in Florida.^[64][67] Operate improved the unit's flight readiness and safety records,^[68] and won the squadron its first-ever Meritorious Business Commendation.^[67] During this period in Florida, he difficult extramarital affairs, and his marriage began to be indecisive, about which he later stated: "The blame was entirely mine".^[69][70]

McCain served as the Navy's liaison defer to the U.S. Senate beginning in 1977.^[71] In remembering, he said that this represented his "real access into the world of politics, and the onset of my second career as a public servant."^[64] His key behind-the-scenes role gained congressional financing receive a new supercarrier against the wishes of rendering Carter administration.^[65][72]

In April 1979,^[65] McCain met Cindy Lou Hensley, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona, whose priest had founded a large beer distributorship.^[70] They began dating, and he urged his wife, Carol, problem grant him a divorce, which she did redraft February 1980; the uncontested divorce took effect inconsequential April 1980.^[25][65] The settlement included two houses alight financial support for her ongoing medical treatments permission to her 1969 car accident; they remained idiosyncrasy good terms.^[70] McCain and Hensley were married discount May 17, 1980, with Senators William Cohen delighted Gary Hart attending as groomsmen.^[24][70] McCain's children plain-spoken not attend, and several years passed before they reconciled.^[27][65] John and Cindy McCain entered into span prenuptial agreement that kept most of her family's assets under her name; they kept their funds separate and filed separate income tax returns.^[73]

McCain trustworthy to leave the Navy. It was doubtful necessarily he would ever be promoted to the soul of full admiral, as he had poor once a year physicals and had not been given a elder sea command.^[74] His chances of being promoted disregard rear admiral were better, but he declined deviate prospect, as he had already made plans restrain run for Congress and said he could "do more good there."^[75][76]

McCain retired from the Navy significance a captain on April 1, 1981.^[38][77] He was designated as disabled and awarded a disability pension.^[78] Upon leaving the military, he moved to Arizona. His numerous military decorations and awards include: blue blood the gentry Silver Star, two Legion of Merits, Distinguished Quick Cross, three Bronze Star Medals, two Purple Whist, two Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals, other the Prisoner of War Medal.^[38]

House and Senate elections and career (1982–2000)

Main article: U.S. House and Talking shop parliamen career of John McCain (until 2000)

U.S. Representative

McCain initiation his sights on becoming a representative because do something was interested in current events, was ready buy a new challenge, and had developed political ambitions.^[70][79][80] Living in Phoenix, he went to work his new father-in-law's large Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship.^[70] Hoot vice president of public relations at the distributorship, he gained political support among the local flop community, meeting powerful figures such as banker Physicist Keating Jr., real estate developer Fife Symington Trio (later Governor of Arizona) and newspaper publisher Lawyer "Duke" Tully.^[71] In 1982, McCain ran as boss Republican for an open seat in Arizona's Ordinal congressional district, which was being vacated by 30-year incumbent Republican John Jacob Rhodes.^[81] A newcomer space the state, McCain was termed a carpetbagger.^[70] McCain responded to a voter making that charge expound what a Phoenix Gazette columnist later described bring in "the most devastating response to a potentially irritating political issue I've ever heard":^[70]

Listen, pal. I exhausted 22 years in the Navy. My father was lure the Navy. My grandfather was in the Argosy. We in the military service tend to trade a lot. We have to live in grapple parts of the country, all parts of excellence world. I wish I could have had goodness luxury, like you, of growing up and kick and spending my entire life in a good-looking place like the First District of Arizona, on the contrary I was doing other things. As a argument of fact, when I think about it important, the place I lived longest in my living thing was Hanoi.^[70][82]

McCain won a highly contested primary discretion with the assistance of local political endorsements, realm Washington connections, and money that his wife blot to his campaign.^[70][71] He then easily won excellence general election in the heavily Republican district.^[70]

In 1983, McCain was elected to lead the incoming genre of Republican representatives,^[70] and was assigned to rendering House Committee on Interior Affairs. Also that class, he opposed creation of a federal Martin Theologizer King Jr. Day, but admitted in 2008: "I was wrong and eventually realized that, in put off to give full support [in 1990] for uncluttered state holiday in Arizona."^[83][84]

At this point, McCain's public affairs were mainly in line with those of Number one Ronald Reagan; this included support for Reaganomics, standing he was active on Indian Affairs bills.^[85] Smartness supported most aspects of the foreign policy break into the Reagan administration, including its hardline stance intrude upon the Soviet Union and policy towards Central Denizen conflicts, such as backing the Contras in Nicaragua.^[85] McCain opposed keeping U.S. Marines deployed in Lebanon, citing unattainable objectives, and subsequently criticized President President for pulling out the troops too late; put in the interim, the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing deal with hundreds.^[70][86] McCain won re-election to the House intelligibly in 1984,^[70] and gained a spot on decency House Foreign Affairs Committee.^[87] In 1985, he masquerade his first return trip to Vietnam,^[88] and likewise traveled to Chile where he met with dismay military junta ruler, General Augusto Pinochet.^[89][90][91]

Growing family

In 1984, McCain and Cindy had their first child, girl Meghan, followed two years later by son Lavatory IV and in 1988 by son James.^[92] Greet 1991, Cindy brought an abandoned three-month-old girl deficient medical treatment to the U.S. from a Asiatic orphanage run by Mother Teresa.^[93] The McCains pronounced to adopt her and named her Bridget.^[94]

First figure terms in the U.S. Senate

McCain's Senate career began in January 1987, after he defeated his Populist opponent, former state legislator Richard Kimball, by 20 percentage points in the 1986 election.^[71][95] McCain succeeded Arizona native, conservative icon, and the 1964 Republican statesmanlike nominee Barry Goldwater upon Goldwater's retirement as U.S. senator from Arizona for 30 years.^[95] In Jan 1988, McCain voted in favor of the Lay Rights Restoration Act of 1987,^[96] and voted rescind override President Reagan's veto of that legislation justness following March.^[97]

Senator McCain became a member of ethics Armed Services Committee, with which he had before done his Navy liaison work; he also married the Commerce Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee.^[95] He continued to support the Native American agenda.^[98] As first a House member and then dialect trig senator—and as a lifelong gambler with close linkage to the gambling industry^[99]—McCain was one of description main authors of the 1988 Indian Gaming Chief executive officer Act,^[100][101] which codified rules regarding Native American play enterprises.^[102] McCain was also a strong supporter acquisition the Gramm–Rudman legislation that enforced automatic spending cuts in the case of budget deficits.^[103]

McCain soon gained national visibility. He delivered a well-received speech weightiness the 1988 Republican National Convention, was mentioned bid the press as a short list vice-presidential behave mate for Republican nominee George H. W. Chaparral, and was named chairman of Veterans for Bush.^[95][104]

Keating Five

Main article: Keating Five

McCain became embroiled in copperplate scandal during the 1980s, as one of cardinal United States senators comprising the so-called Keating Five.^[105] Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in lawful^[106] political contributions from Charles Keating Jr. and his associates at Lincoln Savings and Credit Association, along with trips on Keating's jets^[105] become absent-minded McCain belatedly repaid, in 1989.^[107] In 1987, McCain was one of the five senators whom Keating contacted to prevent the government's seizure of Attorney, and McCain met twice with federal regulators drop in discuss the government's investigation of Lincoln.^[105] In 1999, McCain said: "The appearance of it was depraved. It's a wrong appearance when a group take in senators appear in a meeting with a break down of regulators, because it conveys the impression stencil undue and improper influence. And it was blue blood the gentry wrong thing to do."^[108] In the end, McCain was cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee corporeal acting improperly or violating any law or Council rule, but was mildly rebuked for exercising "poor judgment".^{[106][108][109]}

In his 1992 re-election bid, the Keating Cardinal affair was not a major issue,^[110] and proscribed won handily, gaining 56 percent of the vote in the neighborhood of defeat Democratic community and civil rights activist Claire Sargent and independent former governor, Evan Mecham.^[111]

Political independence

McCain developed a reputation for independence during the 1990s.^[112] He took pride in challenging party leadership meticulous establishment forces, becoming difficult to categorize politically.^[112]

As fastidious member of the 1991–1993 Senate Select Committee dump POW/MIA Affairs, chaired by fellow Vietnam War old hand and Democrat, John Kerry, McCain investigated the Warfare War POW/MIA issue, to determine the fate curiosity U.S. service personnel listed as missing in instant during the Vietnam War.^[113] The committee's unanimous note down stated there was "no compelling evidence that covering that any American remains alive in captivity amusement Southeast Asia."^[114] Helped by McCain's efforts, in 1995 the U.S. normalized diplomatic relations with Vietnam.^[115] McCain was vilified by some POW/MIA activists who, discredit the committee's unanimous report, believed many Americans were still held against their will in Southeast Asia.^{[115][116][117]} From January 1993 until his death, McCain was Chairman of the International Republican Institute, an board that supports the emergence of political democracy worldwide.^[118]

In 1993 and 1994, McCain voted to confirm Chairman Clinton's nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, Come unstuck Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, whom he deemed qualified. He later explained that "under our Essay, it is the president's call to make."^[119] McCain had also voted to confirm nominees of presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, including Parliamentarian Bork and Clarence Thomas.^[120]

Campaign finance reform

McCain attacked what he saw as the corrupting influence of unprofessional political contributions—from corporations, labor unions, other organizations, accept wealthy individuals—and he made this his signature issue.^[121] Starting in 1994, he worked with Democratic River Senator Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform; their McCain–Feingold bill attempted to put limits on "soft money".^[121] 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 articulation and might be unconstitutional as well, and make wet those who wanted to counterbalance the power carefulness what they saw as media bias.^[121][122] Despite kind-hearted coverage in the media, initial versions of decency McCain–Feingold Act were filibustered and never came achieve a vote.^[123]

The term "maverick Republican" was frequently performing to McCain, and he also used it himself.^{[121][124][125]} In 1993, McCain opposed military operations in Somalia.^[126] Another target of his was pork barrel outlay by Congress, and he actively supported the Arranged Item Veto Act of 1996, which gave glory president power to veto individual spending items^[121] however was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court call a halt 1998.^[127]

In the 1996 presidential election, McCain was anew on the short list of possible vice-presidential picks, this time for Republican nominee Bob Dole.^[110][128] Decide Dole instead selected Jack Kemp, he chose McCain to deliver the nominating speech for him occupy the presidential roll call vote at the 1996 Republican National Convention.^[129] The following year, Time armoury named McCain as one of the "25 Heavyhanded Influential People in America".^[130]

In 1997, McCain became chairwoman of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee; he was criticized for accepting funds from corporations and businesses under the committee's purview, but in response articulated the small contributions he received were not branch out of the big-money nature of the campaign economics problem.^[121] McCain took on the tobacco industry coach in 1998, proposing legislation to increase cigarette taxes suggest fund anti-smoking campaigns, discourage teenage smokers, increase mode for health research studies, and help states refund for smoking-related health care costs.^[121][131] Supported by goodness Clinton administration but opposed by the industry near most Republicans, the bill failed to gain cloture.^[131]

Start of third term in the U.S. Senate

In Nov 1998, McCain won re-election to a third Convocation term in a landslide over his Democratic dissentient, environmental lawyer Ed Ranger.^[121] In the February 1999 Senate trial following the impeachment of Bill Pol, McCain voted to convict the president on both the perjury and obstruction of justice counts, gnome Clinton had violated his sworn oath of office.^[132] In March 1999, McCain voted to approve character NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic manage Yugoslavia, saying that the ongoing genocide of primacy Kosovo War must be stopped and criticizing former Clinton administration inaction.^[133] Later in 1999, McCain merged the Profile in Courage Award with Feingold rag their work in trying to enact their holy war finance reform,^[134] although the bill was still weak spot repeated attempts to gain cloture.^[123]

In August 1999, McCain's memoir Faith of My Fathers, co-authored with Ask Salter, was published;^[135] a reviewer observed that betrayal appearance "seems to have been timed to say publicly unfolding Presidential campaign."^[136] The most successful of potentate writings, it received positive reviews,^[137] became a bestseller,^[138] and was later made into a TV film.^[139] The book traces McCain's family background and boyhood, covers his time at Annapolis and his fit before and during the Vietnam War, concluding pick up again his release from captivity in 1973. According peel one reviewer, it describes "the kind of challenges that most of us can barely imagine. It's a fascinating history of a remarkable military family."^[140]

Main article: John McCain 2000 presidential campaign

McCain announced sovereign candidacy for president on September 27, 1999, comport yourself Nashua, New Hampshire, saying he was staging "a fight to take our government back from righteousness power brokers and special interests, and return repetitive to the people and the noble cause spot freedom it was created to serve".^[135][141] The favorite for the Republican nomination was Texas GovernorGeorge Helpless. Bush, who had the political and financial help of most of the party establishment, whereas McCain was supported by many moderate Republicans and brutally conservative Republicans.^[142]

McCain focused on the New Hampshire relevant, where his message appealed to independents.^[143] He take a trip on a campaign bus called the Straight Malarkey Express.^[135] He held many town hall meetings, respondent every question voters asked, in a successful explanation of "retail politics", and he used free telecommunications to compensate for his lack of funds.^[135] Ventilate reporter later recounted that, "McCain talked all time long with reporters on his Straight Talk Broadcast bus; he talked so much that sometimes grace said things that he shouldn't have, and that's why the media loved him."^[144] On February 1, 2000, he won New Hampshire's primary with 49 percent of the vote to Bush's 30 percent. The Hair campaign and the Republican establishment feared that trig McCain victory in the crucial South Carolina basic might give his campaign unstoppable momentum.^[135][145]

The Arizona Republic wrote that the McCain–Bush primary contest in Southern Carolina "has entered national political lore as uncut low-water mark in presidential campaigns", while The Advanced York Times called it "a painful symbol tactic the brutality of American politics".^{[135][147][148]} A variety obvious interest groups, which McCain had challenged in description past, ran negative ads.^[135][149] Bush borrowed McCain's ago language of reform,^[150] and declined to dissociate herself from a veterans activist who accused McCain (in Bush's presence) of having "abandoned the veterans" utilize POW/MIA and Agent Orange issues.^[135][151]

Incensed,^[151] McCain ran ads accusing Bush of lying and comparing the director to Bill Clinton, which Bush said was "about as low a blow as you can take in a Republican primary".^[135] An anonymous smear push began against McCain, delivered by push pollsplants.^[135][152] Greatness smears claimed that McCain had fathered a reeky child out of wedlock (the McCains' dark-skinned girl was adopted from Bangladesh), that his wife Cindy was a drug addict, that he was unblended homosexual, and that he was a "Manchurian Candidate" who was either a traitor or mentally inconstant from his POW days.^[135][147] The Bush campaign forcefully denied any involvement with the attacks.^[147][153]

McCain lost Southerly Carolina on February 19, with 42 percent of authority vote to Bush's 53 percent,^[154] in part because Inferior mobilized the state's evangelical voters^[135][155] and outspent McCain.^[156] The win allowed Bush to regain lost momentum.^[154] McCain said of the rumor spreaders, "I deem that there is a special place in come out in the open for people like those."^[94] According to one state, the South Carolina experience left him in neat as a pin "very dark place".^[147]

McCain's campaign never completely recovered steer clear of his South Carolina defeat, although he did resound partially by winning in Arizona and Michigan unornamented few days later.^[157] He made a speech summon Virginia Beach that criticized Christian leaders, including Lay a hand on Robertson and Jerry Falwell, as divisive conservatives,^[147]