- Senator John McCain was born on August 29, 1936. If elected US President, he would be the oldest ever at the time of his first day in office. While that may cause more concern about his selection of running mate than usual, it’s worth noting that his mother is 96 years old.
- Both his father and grandfather were U.S. Navy Admirals. McCain didn’t take as well to authority and graduated from his class ranked 894 out of 899.
- As a naval aviator in the Vietnam War he spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war. After about a year he was offered a chance to return home early, but would only accept if every man taken before him was released as well. The injuries sustained during that time have left him unable to lift his arms above his head.
- McCain married his second and current wife, Cindy, in 1980. She is 17 years his junior.
- McCain and his family were the subject of one of the nastiest stunts in presidential campaign history, when during the 2000 race for the Republican nomination, a rumour was spread that their adopted daughter from Bangladesh was fathered by McCain out of wedlock. His response: ‘I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those’.
- McCain joined the U.S. Senate in 1987, and from the mid-90s onwards has gained a reputation for being something of a ‘maverick’. The McCain-Feingold Act, which was enacted in 2002, reformed the regulations for campaign financing. In 2001, McCain voted against ‘the Bush tax cuts’, claiming that he could not support a tax cut which helped the most fortunate. McCain did vote for the Iraq war, but eight months after its commencement he was publicly questioning (former Secretary of Defense) Donald Rumsfeld’s performance. More recently, he has been a proponent of immigration reform, including allowing long-time illegal immigrants to gain citizenship, increasing the number of guest workers, and increasing border enforcement.
- He strongly supported the Iraq troop surge of 2007, which has been associated with reduced violence and stronger security in Iraq. The apparent success of the operation has been a boost for McCain’s current presidential campaign.
- He is close friends with Rudy Giuliani, despite the latter’s support for George W. Bush for the 2000 Republican nomination.
- In the 2004 presidential election, McCain was mentioned as being a possible running mate for fellow Vietnam War veteran and Democrat nominee John Kerry.
- President Bush has labeled McCain ‘a true conservative’. McCain’s lifetime American Conservative Union voting rating is 82 per cent (Barack Obama’s is 8 per cent and Hillary Rodham Clinton’s is 9 per cent), although it has dropped in recent years. The Gun Owners of America have been less enthusiastic, grading him as F-.
- He has sung ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran’ to the tune of the Beach Boys’ ‘Barbara Ann’.
- Despite the chants of ‘Mac is back!’ early in the primaries, no-one can recall him ever being called ‘Mac’ before.
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