Arizona Senator John McCain Dies at 81
Endurance served John Sidney McCain III nearly as well in politics as it did in war.
McCain, who died on Saturday at age 81 after a year-long struggle with brain cancer, endured more than five years of mistreatment and torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, an experience that helped vault him into national politics and endear himself as a hero to the voting public. There he endured scandal and smears, electoral defeats and his own occasional recklessness to make two serious runs at the presidency and earn a place as one of America’s most respected political figures during the last two decades of his life.
Alternately witty and hot-tempered, McCain used candor and accessibility to break through at a time when politicians were closing themselves off to the public and the press. His freewheeling 2000 presidential campaign against George W. Bush positioned him as the Republican frontrunner in 2008, when after a roller-coaster candidacy he secured the nomination only to lose to Barack Obama.
John McCain and the lost art of decency
During a 31-year career representing Arizona in the Senate, McCain frequently decried the usual politics but proved himself to be a nimble politician: He began as a loyal Reagan Republican but later cultivated a reputation as a maverick, defying his party at key moments that earned him kudos from Democrats and independents but
