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CAMPAIGN PORTRAIT: John McCain
Copyright © 2000 Nando Media
Copyright © 2000 Associated Press
Originally published in September 1999
By EUN-KYUNG KIM
WASHINGTON (November 16, 1999 10:11 a.m. EST
http://www.nandotimes.com) - The son and grandson of Navy admirals,
John Sydney McCain was destined for a military career from the word go.
His calling in the world of politics seemed less obvious.
"I don't think my grandfather or my father ever voted," McCain said of his
namesakes. "They were both very apolitical."
Both men believed that "democracies were ruined by military officers
getting into politics," said McCain's brother, Joe McCain. That left the two
boys, who also have a sister, to feed their interest from the family's political
junkie, their mother, a true-blue Republican who "watches and reads more
news than John and I put together."
"He and I and mother used to spend I-don't-know how many hours at the
dinner table arguing about politics and history," said Joe McCain, a free-
lance writer. They dissected legislation. Sometimes, they spoke of "what
mistakes historians made" or about the current economy.
"We were all basically on the same side of the fence," the younger McCain
said, "but it was like Talmudic scholars arguing about a single word or an
adjective."
Now with young children of his own, John McCain is the one trying to
distance politics from his family. But as a presidential candidate struggling
to surface from a deep pool of Republican hopefuls, the task has become
increasingly difficult. His wife, the millionaire daughter of an Arizona beer
baron, had avoided the Washington social scene but now frequents the
campaign trail with her husband. Eventually joining them will be their four
children, plucked from their ranch-style Phoenix home where they have
known very little of the nomadic lifestyle that McCain experienced as a
Navy brat.
The paradox is among many for this 63-year-old Arizona senator, a father
and husband who has kept his personal life private and yet has centered
his campaign around his outspoken personality.
Dubbed a maverick for his habit of butting heads with fellow Republicans,
McCain has enjoyed a high profile existence in Washington as the
chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Outside the Beltway,
however, he has to introduce himself to Americans more familiar with
names like Bush and Dole.
McCain spent more than 20 years in the Navy, a quarter of it in a
Vietnamese prisoner of war camp. On Oct. 26, 1967, his jet was shot down
over Hanoi during a bombing mission. He broke both arms and shattered a
shoulder and a knee while ejecting from the aircraft. When he landed, he
was pulled from a lake by a North Vietnamese mob that stabbed him with
bayonets.
McCain was beaten repeatedly for the next 5 1/2 years. When his captors
learned he was the son of a prominent Navy admiral, they offered to
release him early. McCain refused to go along with what he saw as a
propaganda ploy, and he insisted that soldiers captured before him leave
first.
The war story is a central theme in his campaign, one featured prominently
in ads and videotapes. But McCain insists he gets "bored stiff" talking
about it.
Since the day he returned, McCain said, "people wanted to paint myself as
a person who performed heroic acts, which I know not to be true."
Earlier this year, McCain mocked his war hero image at Washington's
Gridiron Club dinner, taking to the stage in a jacket crammed with phony
ribbons and medals. The event was a chance to show that Vietnam does
not cast on shadow on all his thoughts or actions, and is far from the
defining moment in his life, he said.
"Yes, it's part of my legend but it is not necessarily a compelling argument
for me to be president," McCain. "In fact, all it does is warrant a
consideration."
He said the defining factor will be when voters decide whether he has the
vision and the principles to lead the country into the next century.
McCain's vision revolves around one word: reform. Reforming the
government, Social Security, the education system, the tax code, the
military and, of course, the way political campaigns are financed.
Though his voting record shows him to be consistent with his GOP
colleagues, McCain has a reputation for bucking the party line, particularly
on issues like campaign finance reform and
tobacco legislation. While a freshman House member, McCain stood up to
a political hero, Ronald Reagan, and voted against sending Marines to
Lebanon.
Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas fought bitterly with the Arizona senator over
tobacco tax and campaign finance.
"John McCain has been willing to stand up and fight on issues that he truly
believes in when there's been tremendous peer group pressure to shut up
and get out of the way," said Gramm, whose brief 1996 presidential stint
was led by McCain. "I have seen him do it
