Emperor’s Club

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1. pam - February 8, 2008

hi kuya jan! technology nga naman, sa blog ka na nagbibigay ng assignment ha! and i like the topic u gave ur students re foreign policy of us presidential candidates. =)

2. paul benjie torrecampo mn2-2d - February 8, 2008

ITS HILLARY CLINTON!

Hillary’s American Health Choices Plan covers all Americans and improves health care by lowering costs and improving quality. It speaks to American values, American families, and American jobs.

It puts the consumer in the driver’s seat by offering more choices and lowering costs. If you’re one of the tens of million Americans without coverage or if you don’t like the coverage you have, you will have a choice of plans to pick from and that coverage will be affordable. Of course, if you like the plan you have, you can keep it.

Affordable: Unlike the current health system where insurance premiums send people into bankruptcy, the plan provides tax credits for working families to help them cover their costs. The tax credits will ensure that working families never have to pay more than a limited percentage of their income for health care.

Available: No discrimination. The insurance companies can’t deny you coverage if you have a pre-existing condition.

Reliable: It’s portable. If you change or lose your job, you keep your health care.

3. heidi ortiz - February 10, 2008

…HILLARY CLINTON…

for me ms.hillary clinton is doing fine right now,what she is doing right now.keep it up hillary!!!especially the GPOA or the general program of action but when im watching hillary to all her speeches and debate.
i have some couple of advice to nourished her personality…this is it…
i notice that she is full of energy woman but sometimes it is too much.she make her a totally over acting especially the expression of her eyes.i think she should be a observant of her action and expression.might his or her voter afraid to her.hehehe!it is funny but it can be a reason to lessen her vote.also being serious to all the words she uttered and able to stand her point to his or her audience especially to the voter so that she can get there heart especially there vote.
another advice that i can give hillary is that make an issue that she can make it clear that you will fight for it to the end.in the eyes of his or her audience makes
her a hero,another point for her.
my last advice for her is be in her self,be natural and being honest because the eyes of the world is watching you…go hillary gogogo!!!you can do it!keep it up!

4. remylyn - February 10, 2008

a teacher teaches and inspire always…at any means and at anywhere….
hhhhhhaayyyyy….guro ka talaga sir!h

5. jerald capule - February 11, 2008

John McCain…
i can see that he’s the best candidate fo 2008
it’s because he is well experienced in terms of politics…
he also has a well known military experience…

6. Timothy abp 1-1d - February 12, 2008

…HILLARY CLINTON…

for me ms.hillary clinton is doing fine right now,what she is doing right now.keep it up hillary!!!

she Have to exert more effort for self-developmetn..and get her out of the box for the enormity of the others as wel

7. John Lawrence Almendras ABP1-1 - February 12, 2008

If i given the chance to choose,I will go to mrs.Hillary Clinton because she is one of America’s foremost advocates for children and families.She is also a champion of women’s right and human rights around the world.hillary has been tough critic of the administration’s of Iraq and a fierce advocate for proper equipment ,health benefits and treatment for military families.
so,vote for clinton!!!!!!!!!
she is the best!!

8. ANALEA - February 12, 2008

!!!!!!!GO 4 HILLARY CLINTON!!!!!!!!!!!!

Y CLINTON?
I Like her bec..she is one of the most remarkable democratic leader of the new Generation……
she also done the best things in the senate of U.S like……..
-voted against the infamous military commission of 2006
_supported expand acess to family planning services for low income familiesSenator Clinton _offense for members of a president’s staff to use government resources to create fake news releases for purposes of political promotion. she against the big government propaganda machine. that’s why I LIKE her…..she’s INTELLLIGENT…

9. janine of abp1-1 - February 13, 2008

since i’m not that updated with the American government and the nominees on the coming prsidential elections i can’t tell who’s most deserving . . but as of what i’ve heard and read Hillary Clinton is fitted to be the future president of America. . . since her previous contributioon as a senator were remarkable and she pursued more on Strengthening the Middle Class, providing affordable and accessible health care, ending the war in Iraq, a comprehensive government reform, and promoting energy independence . . . what America needs is a president with full dignity and strong enough to come up with the decisions

10. joana marie miguel mn2-2d - February 13, 2008

HILLARY CLINTON

i choose Hillary Clinton because as shown in this passage, it shows the good things he had done in the country.. and also i choose him rather than the two because i know more about him than Barack Obama and John McCain…

During the years that Hillary Clinton served as first lady, she became a symbol of America’s human face and the values we cherish as a people. In an unprecedented role, she traveled to more than eighty countries to highlight the importance of investing in people. She gave voice to those living on the margins of society, particularly women and children, but also the poor. She put a spotlight on US development programs that offered solutions to pressing problems like infectious diseases, illiteracy, and economic marginalization. She advanced important causes — from microcredit to global health initiatives — with an array of foreign leaders, international organizations, and grass roots activists. And she also talked to Americans about why these investments were critical to expanding our influence and enhancing our own security.

11. jeSsIry MagluNs0d - February 13, 2008

aq??

ahMmm….

Sa ToToo LAnG D Q Po AlAm
kC HiNdI Po Aq MXaDonG UpDaTed Sa MGa
NaNgya2Ri….

HnDi NamAn Dn cGuRo Aq Mg Be2NiFit
Kung Cnu mAn mAnA2Lo sa Knila….

Yun LaNg Po..
hehehehe

12. khareen,mn2-2d - February 13, 2008

_i think its hillary clinton becoz of these experiences: Senator, United States Senate, 2001-present
First Lady of the United States, 1993-2001
First Lady of Arkansas, 1979-1981, 1983-1993
House Judiciary Committee, 1974..

we all know that experience is the best teacher that’s why i’ll go for hillary clinton..
i can see her potentials..

13. mary joy - February 13, 2008

.., for me is Hillary Clinton because for me she’s the best and she is deserving to be the first woman president of the united states..,hehe,.,♥♥..,,

14. rainier villareal - February 13, 2008

hai…ang hirap magkomento pag ang gamit mong pc nagloloko…hahaha…naka sampung restart lang naman ako… hahaha

15. FAYE BERNARDINO - February 13, 2008

Obama was born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. (born in Nyanza Province, Kenya, of Luo ethnicity) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas).[8] Throughout his early years, he was commonly known at home and school as “Barry”.[9] Obama’s parents met while both were attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student.[10] They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.[11] His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya, where he died in an auto accident in 1982.[12] His mother married another foreign student, Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro’s home country of Indonesia in 1967.[13] Obama attended local schools in Jakarta from ages 6 to 10, where classes were taught in Indonesian.[14][15] When he was in third grade he wrote an essay saying that he wanted to become president. His teacher later told the Chicago Tribune that she was not sure what country he wanted to become president of but that he said that his reason was that he wanted to make everybody happy. [16] He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade until his graduation in 1979.[17] Obama’s mother died of ovarian cancer a few months after the publication of his 1995 memoir, Dreams from My Father.[18]

In the memoir, Obama describes his experiences growing up in his mother’s American middle class family. His knowledge about his African father, who returned once for a brief visit in 1971, came mainly through family stories and photographs.[12] Of his early childhood, Obama writes: “That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind.”[19] The book describes his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.[20] He wrote that he used alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to “push questions of who I was out of my mind”.[21]

After high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years.[22] He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.[23] Obama received his B.A. degree in 1983, then worked at Business International Corporation and NYPIRG before moving to Chicago to take a job as a community organizer.[24] As Director of the Developing Communities Project, he worked with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and the Altgeld Gardens public housing development.[25] He entered Harvard Law School in 1988.[26] In 1990, The New York Times reported his election as the Harvard Law Review’s “first black president in its 104-year history”.[27] He completed his J.D. degree magna cum laude in 1991.[28] On returning to Chicago, Obama directed a voter registration drive.[28] As an associate attorney with Miner, Barnhill & Galland from 1993 to 1996, he represented community organizers, discrimination claims, and voting rights cases.[29] He was a lecturer of constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 until his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004.[30]

State legislature
Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996 from the state’s 13th District spanning the south-side Chicago neighborhoods of Hyde Park, South Shore, and Englewood.[31] In 2000, he made an unsuccessful Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives seat held by four-term incumbent candidate Bobby Rush.[32] He was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998 and 2002, officially resigning in November 2004 following his election to the U.S. Senate.[33] As a state legislator, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws.[34] He sponsored a law enhancing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.[35] Obama also led the passage of legislation mandating videotaping of homicide interrogations, and a law to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they stopped.[35] During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, he won the endorsement of the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, whose president credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.[36] He was criticized by rival pro-choice candidates in the Democratic primary and by his Republican pro-life opponent in the general election for a series of “present” or “no” votes on late-term abortion and parental notification issues.[37]

Keynote address at 2004 Democratic National Convention
See also: 2004 Democratic National Convention
Obama wrote and delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts, while still serving as a state legislator.[38] After describing his maternal grandfather’s experiences as a World War II veteran and a beneficiary of the New Deal’s FHA and G.I. Bill programs, Obama said:

No, people don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all. They know we can do better. And they want that choice.[39]

Questioning the Bush administration’s management of the Iraq War, Obama spoke of an enlisted Marine, Corporal Seamus Ahern from East Moline, Illinois, asking, “Are we serving Seamus as well as he is serving us?” He continued:

When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.[39]

Finally, he spoke for national unity:

The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.[39]

The speech was Obama’s introduction to most of America. Its enthusiastic reception at the convention and widespread coverage by national media gave him instant celebrity status.[40]

Senate campaign
Main article: United States Senate election in Illinois, 2004
In 2003, Obama began his run for the U.S. Senate open seat vacated by Peter Fitzgerald. In early opinion polls leading up to the Democratic primary, Obama trailed multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull and Illinois Comptroller Daniel Hynes.[41] However, Hull’s popularity declined following allegations of domestic abuse.[41] Obama’s candidacy was boosted by an advertising campaign featuring images of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and the late U.S. Senator Paul Simon; the support of Simon’s daughter; and political endorsements by the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times.[42] Obama received over 52% of the vote in the March 2004 primary, emerging 29% ahead of his nearest Democratic rival.[43] His opponent in the general election was expected to be Republican primary winner Jack Ryan. However, Ryan withdrew from the race in June 2004, following public disclosure of child custody divorce records containing sexual allegations by Ryan’s ex-wife, actress Jeri Ryan.[44] In August 2004, with less than three months to go before election day, Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination to replace Ryan.[45] A long-time resident of Maryland, Keyes established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination.[46] Through three televised debates, Obama and Keyes expressed opposing views on stem cell research, abortion, gun control, school vouchers, and tax cuts.[47] In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes’s 27%, the largest electoral victory in Illinois history.[48]

Senate career
Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 4, 2005.[49] Although a newcomer to Washington, he recruited a team of established, high-level advisers devoted to broad themes that exceeded the usual requirements of an incoming first-term senator.[50] Obama hired Pete Rouse, a 30-year veteran of national politics and former chief of staff to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, as his chief of staff, and economist Karen Kornbluh, former deputy chief of staff to Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, as his policy director.[51] His key foreign policy advisers include Samantha Power, author on human rights and genocide, and former Clinton administration officials Anthony Lake and Susan Rice.[52] Obama holds assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Veterans’ Affairs, and he is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.[53] The U.S. Senate Historical Office lists him as the fifth African American Senator in U.S. history, the third to have been popularly elected, and the only African American currently serving in the Senate.[54]

109th Congress

Senate bill sponsors Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Obama discuss the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act.[55]Obama took an active role in the Senate’s drive for improved border security and immigration reform. In 2005, he co-sponsored the “Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act” introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).[56] He later added three amendments to the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act”, which passed the Senate in May 2006, but failed to gain majority support in the U.S. House of Representatives.[57] In September 2006, Obama supported a related bill, the Secure Fence Act, authorizing construction of fencing and other security improvements along the Mexico–United States border.[58] President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act into law in October 2006, calling it “an important step toward immigration reform.”[59]

Partnering first with Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN), and then with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Obama successfully introduced two initiatives bearing his name. “Lugar-Obama” expands the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles and anti-personnel mines.[60] The “Coburn-Obama Transparency Act” provides for a web site, managed by the Office of Management and Budget, listing all organizations receiving Federal funds from 2007 onward, and providing breakdowns by the agency allocating the funds, the dollar amount given, and the purpose of the grant or contract.[61] In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the “Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act,” marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor.[62]

As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In August 2005, he traveled to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. The trip focused on strategies to control the world’s supply of conventional weapons, biological weapons, and weapons of mass destruction as a first defense against potential terrorist attacks.[63] Following meetings with U.S. military in Kuwait and Iraq in January 2006, Obama visited Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. At a meeting with Palestinian students two weeks before Hamas won the legislative election, Obama warned that “the U.S. will never recognize winning Hamas candidates unless the group renounces its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel.”[64] He left for his third official trip in August 2006, traveling to South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. In a nationally televised speech at the University of Nairobi, he spoke forcefully on the influence of ethnic rivalries and corruption in Kenya.[65] The speech touched off a public debate among rival leaders, some formally challenging Obama’s remarks as unfair and improper, others defending his positions.[66]

110th Congress
In the first month of the newly Democratic-controlled 110th Congress, Obama worked with Russ Feingold (D–WI) to eliminate gifts of travel on corporate jets by lobbyists to members of Congress and require disclosure of bundled campaign contributions under the “Honest Leadership and Open Government Act”, which was signed into law in September 2007.[67] He joined Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in sponsoring S. 453, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections, including fraudulent flyers and automated phone calls, as witnessed in the 2006 midterm elections.[68] Obama’s energy initiatives scored pluses and minuses with environmentalists, who welcomed his sponsorship with John McCain (R-AZ) of a climate change bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds by 2050, but were skeptical of his support for a bill promoting liquefied coal production.[69] Obama also introduced the “Iraq War De-Escalation Act”, a bill to cap troop levels in Iraq, begin phased redeployment, and remove all combat brigades from Iraq before April 2008.[70]

Later in 2007, Obama sponsored with Kit Bond (R-MO) an amendment to the 2008 Defense Authorization Act adding safeguards for personality disorder military discharges, and calling for a review by the Government Accountability Office following reports that the procedure had been used inappropriately to reduce government costs.[71] He sponsored the “Iran Sanctions Enabling Act” supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran’s oil and gas industry,[72] and joined Chuck Hagel (R-NE) in introducing legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism.[73] A provision from the Obama-Hagel bill was passed by Congress in December 2007 as an amendment to the State-Foreign Operations appropriations bill.[73] Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to provide one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.[74] After passing both houses of Congress with bipartisan majorities, SCHIP was vetoed by President Bush in early October 2007, a move Obama said “shows a callousness of priorities that is offensive to the ideals we hold as Americans.”[75]

Presidential campaign
This section contains information about one or more candidates in an upcoming or ongoing election.
Content may change as the election approaches.

Main article: Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008

Obama on stage with his wife and two daughters just before announcing his presidential campaign on February 10, 2007.[76]In February 2007, standing before the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, Obama announced his candidacy for the 2008 U.S. presidential election.[2] Describing his working life in Illinois, and symbolically linking his presidential campaign to Abraham Lincoln’s 1858 House Divided speech, Obama said: “That is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America.”[77] Speaking at a Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting one week before the February announcement, Obama called for putting an end to negative campaigning. “This can’t be about who digs up more skeletons on who, who makes the fewest slip-ups on the campaign trail,” he said. “We owe it to the American people to do more than that.”[78]

Obama’s campaign raised US$58 million during the first half of 2007, topping all other candidates and exceeding previous records for the first six months of any year before an election year.[79] Small donors, those contributing in increments of less than $200, accounted for $16.4 million of Obama’s record-breaking total, more than for any other Democratic candidate.[80] In the first month of 2008, his campaign gained 170,000 new contributors and raised $32 million.[81] Amid concerns for his safety as the first black candidate seen as having a viable chance of being elected president, the U.S. government assigned Secret Service protection to Obama 18 months before the general election.[82]

With two months remaining before the first electoral contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and national opinion polls showing him trailing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama began directly charging his top rival with failing to clearly state her political positions.[83] Campaigning in Iowa, he told the Washington Post that as the Democratic nominee he would draw more support than Clinton from independent and Republican voters in the general election.[84] Obama and Clinton split the first four DNC-sanctioned state contests, with Obama leading the popular vote in Iowa and South Carolina,[85] and Clinton finishing first in New Hampshire and Nevada.[86] His win in Iowa was boosted by majority support from a record turnout of voters under 30 years old, most of them first-time caucus goers.[87] Heading into the February 12, 2008, primaries in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., CBS News estimated Obama leading the competition for convention delegates by a “razor-thin margin” of 1,134 to 1,131 for Clinton. Obama won all three of those contests.[88][89]

Political advocacy
See also: Political positions of Barack Obama
On the role of government in economic affairs, Obama has written: “We should be asking ourselves what mix of policies will lead to a dynamic free market and widespread economic security, entrepreneurial innovation and upward mobility [...] we should be guided by what works.”[90] Speaking before the National Press Club in April 2005, he defended the New Deal social welfare policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, associating Republican proposals to establish private accounts for Social Security with social Darwinism.[91] In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Obama spoke out against government indifference to growing economic class divisions, calling on both political parties to take action to restore the social safety net for the poor.[92] Shortly before announcing his presidential campaign, Obama told the health care advocacy group Families USA: “I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country.”[93]

Meeting with Google employees in November 2007, Obama pledged to appoint a Chief Technology Officer to oversee the U.S. government’s management of IT resources and promote wider access to government information and decision making.[94] Reaffirming his commitment to net neutrality legislation, Obama said “once providers start to privilege some applications or web sites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out, and we all lose.”[95] Campaigning in New Hampshire, he announced an $18 billion plan for investments in early childhood education, math and science education, and expanded summer learning opportunities.[96] Obama’s campaign distinguished his proposals to reward teachers for performance from traditional merit pay systems, assuring unions that changes would be pursued through the collective bargaining process.[97]

At the Tax Policy Center in September 2007, he blamed special interests for distorting the U.S. tax code. “We are taxing income from work at nearly twice the level that we’re taxing gains for investors,” Obama said. “We’ve lost the balance between work and wealth.”[98] His plan would eliminate taxes for senior citizens with incomes of less than $50,000 a year, repeal tax cuts said to favor the wealthy, close corporate tax loopholes and restrict offshore tax havens, and simplify filing of income tax returns by pre-filling wage and bank information already collected by the IRS.[99] Announcing his presidential campaign’s energy plan in October 2007, Obama said: “Businesses don’t own the sky, the public does, and if we want them to stop polluting it, we have to put a price on all pollution.” He proposed a cap and trade auction system to restrict carbon emissions and a 10 year program of investments in new energy sources to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil.[100]

Obama was an early critic of Bush administration policies on Iraq.[101] On October 2, 2002, the day Bush and Congress agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War,[102] Obama addressed the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally in Federal Plaza,[103] saying:

I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.[104]

On March 17, 2003, the day Bush issued his 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq before the U.S. invasion of Iraq,[105] Obama addressed the largest Chicago anti-Iraq War rally to date in Daley Plaza and told the crowd “It’s not too late” to stop the war, though many demonstrators conceded that war appeared inevitable.[106]

Obama sought to make his early public opposition to the Iraq War before it started a major issue in his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign to distinguish himself from his Democratic primary rivals who supported the resolution authorizing the Iraq War,[107] and in his 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign to distinguish himself from four Democratic primary rivals who voted for the resolution authorizing the Iraq War (Sen. Hillary Clinton, Sen. Joe Biden, Sen. Chris Dodd, and former Sen. John Edwards).[108]

Obama addressed the Save Darfur rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on April 30, 2006.[109]Speaking to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in November 2006, Obama called for a “phased redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq” and an opening of diplomatic dialogue with Syria and Iran.[110] In a March 2007 speech to AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby, he said that while the U.S. “should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.”[111] Detailing his strategy for fighting global terrorism in August 2007, Obama said “it was a terrible mistake to fail to act” against a 2005 meeting of al-Qaeda leaders that U.S. intelligence had confirmed to be taking place in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. He said that as president he would not miss a similar opportunity, even without the support of the Pakistani government.[112]

In a December 2005 Washington Post opinion column, and at the Save Darfur rally in April 2006, Obama called for more assertive action to oppose genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.[113] He has divested $180,000 in personal holdings of Sudan-related stock, and has urged divestment from companies doing business in Iran.[114] In the July-August 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, Obama called for an outward looking post-Iraq War foreign policy and the renewal of American military, diplomatic, and moral leadership in the world. Saying “we can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission,” he called on Americans to “lead the world, by deed and by example.”[115]

Obama has encouraged Democrats to reach out to evangelicals and other religious people, saying, “if we truly hope to speak to people where they’re at—to communicate our hopes and values in a way that’s relevant to their own—we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.”[116] In December 2006, he joined Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) at the “Global Summit on AIDS and the Church” organized by church leaders Kay and Rick Warren.[117] Together with Warren and Brownback, Obama took an HIV test, as he had done in Kenya less than four months earlier.[118] He encouraged “others in public life to do the same” to show “there is no shame in going for an HIV test.”[119] Before the conference, 18 pro-life groups published an open letter stating, in reference to Obama’s support for legal abortion: “In the strongest possible terms, we oppose Rick Warren’s decision to ignore Senator Obama’s clear pro-death stance and invite him to Saddleback Church anyway.”[120] Addressing over 8,000 United Church of Christ members in June 2007, Obama challenged “so-called leaders of the Christian Right” for being “all too eager to exploit what divides us.”[121]

Personal life

Obama (middle) playing basketball with U.S. military service members from Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa during his visit at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, on August 31, 2006Obama met his future wife, Michelle Robinson, in 1988 when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley & Austin.[122] Assigned for three months as Obama’s advisor at the firm, Robinson joined him at group social functions, but declined his initial offers to date.[123] They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married in October 1992.[124] The couple’s first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998, followed by a second daughter, Natasha (“Sasha”), in 2001.[125] Applying the proceeds of a $2 million book deal, the family paid off debts in 2005 and moved from a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to their current $1.6-million house in neighboring Kenwood.[126] The house purchase and subsequent acquisition of an adjoining strip of land drew media scrutiny in November 2006 because of financial links with controversial Illinois businessman Tony Rezko.[127] In December 2007, Money magazine estimated the Obama family’s net worth at $1.3 million.[128]

Obama plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school’s varsity team.[129] Before announcing his presidential candidacy, he began a well-publicized effort to quit smoking. “I’ve never been a heavy smoker,” Obama told the Chicago Tribune. “I’ve quit periodically over the last several years. I’ve got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I do not succumb. I’ve been chewing Nicorette strenuously.”[130] Replying to an Associated Press survey of 2008 presidential candidates’ personal tastes, he specified “architect” as his alternate career choice and “chili” as his favorite meal to cook.[131] Asked to name a “hidden talent,” Obama answered: “I’m a pretty good poker player.”[132]

A theme of Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address, and the title of his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, was inspired by his pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.[133] In Chapter 6 of the book, titled “Faith,” Obama writes that he “was not raised in a religious household.” He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents, as detached from religion, yet “in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known.” He describes his Kenyan father as “raised a Muslim,” but a “confirmed atheist” by the time his parents met, and his Indonesian stepfather as “a man who saw religion as not particularly useful.” The chapter details how Obama, in his twenties, while working with local churches as a community organizer, came to understand “the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change”:

It was because of these newfound understandings—that religious commitment did not require me to suspend critical thinking, disengage from the battle for economic and social justice, or otherwise retreat from the world that I knew and loved—that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ one day and be baptized.[134]

He joined Trinity in 1988.[135] A megachurch with 10,000 members, Trinity United Church of Christ is the largest congregation in the United Church of Christ.[135]

Books

The Audacity of HopeObama has written two bestselling books. The first, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, was published after his graduation from law school and before running for public office. In it he recalls his childhood in Honolulu and Jakarta, college years in Los Angeles and New York City, and his employment as a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s. The book’s last chapters describe his first visit to Kenya, a journey to connect with his Luo family and heritage. In his preface to the 2004 revised edition, Obama explains that he had hoped the story of his family “might speak in some way to the fissures of race that have characterized the American experience, as well as the fluid state of identity—the leaps through time, the collision of cultures—that mark our modern life.”[136] Time magazine’s Joe Klein wrote that the book “may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician.”[137] The audiobook edition earned Obama the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.[138]

His second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, was published in October 2006, three weeks before the 2006 midterm election. It was an immediate bestseller and rose to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list by early November 2006.[139] The Chicago Tribune credits the large crowds that gathered at book signings with influencing Obama’s decision to run for president.[140] Former presidential candidate Gary Hart describes the book as Obama’s “thesis submission” for the U.S. presidency: “It presents a man of relative youth yet maturity, a wise observer of the human condition, a figure who possesses perseverance and writing skills that have flashes of grandeur.”[141] Reviewer Michael Tomasky writes that it does not contain “boldly innovative policy prescriptions that will lead the Democrats out of their wilderness,” but does show Obama’s potential to “construct a new politics that is progressive but grounded in civic traditions that speak to a wider range of Americans.”[142] An Italian translation was published in April 2007 with a preface by Walter Veltroni, Mayor of Rome and leader of Italy’s Democratic Party.[143] Spanish and German editions were published in June 2007.[144] The audiobook also won the 2008 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.[145]

Cultural and political image

Obama supporters at a campaign rally in Austin, Texas, on February 23, 2007.[146]Supporters and critics have likened Obama’s popular image to a cultural Rorschach test, a neutral persona on whom people can project their personal histories and aspirations.[147][148] Obama’s own stories about his family origins reinforce what a May 2004 New Yorker magazine article described as his “everyman” image.[149] In Dreams from My Father, he ties his maternal family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, president of the southern Confederacy during the American Civil War.[150] Speaking to an elderly Jewish audience during his 2004 campaign for U.S. Senate, Obama linked the linguistic root of his East African first name Barack to the Hebrew word baruch, meaning “blessed.”[151] In an October 2006 interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family: “Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it’s like a little mini-United Nations,” he said. “I’ve got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I’ve got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher. We’ve got it all.”[152]

With his Kenyan father and American mother, his upbringing in Honolulu and Jakarta, and Ivy League education, Obama’s early life experiences differ markedly from those of African American politicians who launched their careers in the 1960s through participation in the civil rights movement.[153] During his Democratic primary campaign for U.S. Congress in 2000, two rival candidates charged that Obama was not sufficiently rooted in Chicago’s black neighborhoods to represent constituents’ concerns.[154] In January 2007, The End of Blackness author Debra Dickerson warned against drawing favorable cultural implications from Obama’s political rise. “Lumping us all together,” Dickerson wrote in Salon, “erases the significance of slavery and continuing racism while giving the appearance of progress.”[155] Film critic David Ehrenstein, writing in a March 2007 Los Angeles Times article, compared the cultural sources of Obama’s favorable polling among whites to those of “magical negro” roles played by black actors in Hollywood movies.[156] Expressing puzzlement over questions about whether he is “black enough,” Obama told an August 2007 meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists that the debate is not about his physical appearance or his record on issues of concern to black voters. “What it really lays bare,” Obama offered, is that “we’re still locked in this notion that if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong.”[157]

Writing about Obama’s political image in a March 2007 Washington Post opinion column, Eugene Robinson characterized him as “the personification of both-and,” a messenger who rejects “either-or” political choices, and could “move the nation beyond the culture wars” of the 1960s.[158] Obama, who defines himself in The Audacity of Hope as “a Democrat, after all,” has been criticized by progressive commentator David Sirota for demonstrating too much “Senate clubbiness”, and was encouraged to run for the U.S. presidency by conservative columnist George Will.[159] Obama has also been praised by other conservative commentators for his character and his moral values. [160] [161] But in a December 2006 Wall Street Journal editorial headlined “The Man from Nowhere,” former Ronald Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan advised Will and other “establishment” commentators to avoid becoming too quickly excited about Obama’s still early political career.[162] Echoing the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, Obama acknowledged his youthful image, saying in an October 2007 campaign speech, “I wouldn’t be here if, time and again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation.”[163]

Recognition and honors
An October 2005 article in the British journal New Statesman listed Obama as one of “10 people who could change the world,”[164] the only politician included on the list. In 2005 and again in 2007, Time magazine named him one of “the world’s most influential people.”[165] During his first three years in the U.S. Senate, Obama received Honorary Doctorates of Law from Knox College (2005),[166] University of Massachusetts Boston (2006),[167] Northwestern University (2006),[168] Xavier University of Louisiana (2006),[169] Southern New Hampshire University (2007),[170] and Howard University (2007).[171]

Electoral history
(The following omits results from the ongoing Democratic presidential primaries)
Illinois Senate, 13th district, 1998[172]

Barack Obama (D) – 45,486 (89.17%)
Yesse B. Yehudah (R) – 5,526 (10.83%)
Illnois’ 1st congressional district, 2000 (Democratic primary)[173]

Bobby Rush (inc.) – 59,599 (61.03%)
Barack Obama – 29,649 (30.36%)
Donne E. Trotter – 6,915 (7.08%)
George Roby – 1,501 (1.54%)
Illinois Senate, 13th district, 2002[174]:

Barack Obama (D) (inc.) – 48,717 (100.00%)
Illinois United States Senate election, 2004 (Democratic primary)[175]:

Barack Obama – 655,923 (52.77%)
Dan Hynes – 294,717 (23.71%)
Blair Hull – 134,453 (10.82%)
Maria Pappas – 74,987 (6.03%)
Gery Chico – 53,433 (4.30%)
Nancy Skinner – 16,098 (1.30%)
Joyce Washington – 13,375 (1.08%)
Illinois United States Senate election, 2004[176]:

Barack Obama (D) – 3,598,277 (69.97%)
Alan Keyes (R) – 1,391,030 (27.05%)
Albert J. Franzen (I) – 81,186 (1.58%)
Jerry Kohn (Libertarian) – 69,276 (1.35%)

16. FAYE BERNARDINO - February 13, 2008

Early life and military career

Family background and early education

Three generations of John McCains — an infant McCain with his father and grandfather, both Navy Admirals.McCain was born on August 29, 1936, at the Coco Solo Air Base in the then-American-controlled Panama Canal Zone[1] to Admiral John S. “Jack” McCain, Jr. (1911–1981) and Roberta (Wright) McCain (b. 1912). His father and grandfather were United States Navy admirals,[2] and were the first father-son pair to both achieve four-star admiral rank.[3] His grandfather, Admiral John S. “Slew” McCain, Sr., was a pioneer of aircraft carrier strategy[4] who commanded all carrier forces in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II, and led American forces into epic actions such as the Battle of Leyte Gulf, dying four days after the conclusion of that war.[3] His father was a submarine commander[3] decorated with both the Silver Star and Bronze Star.[4] McCain has Scots-Irish ancestry.[5]

For the first ten years of his life, “Johnny” McCain (as he was often known)[4] was frequently uprooted as his family (including older sister Sandy and younger brother Joe)[4] followed his father to New London, Connecticut, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and various other stations in the Pacific Ocean; McCain attended whatever naval base school was available, often to the detriment to his education.[6] After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, his father was absent for long stretches.[4] As a child, John was known for a quick temper and an aggressive drive to compete and prevail.[6] After World War II was over, his father stayed in the Navy, sometimes working political liaison posts;[4] the family settled in Northern Virginia, and McCain attended the educationally stronger St. Stephen’s School in Alexandria, Virginia from 1946 to 1949,[7] where he began to develop an unruly, defiant streak.[8] Another two years were then spent following his father to naval stations;[9] altogether he attended about twenty different schools during his youth.[10] In 1951, McCain enrolled at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, a top private school with a rigorous honor code.[11] McCain earned two varsity letters in wrestling,[12] and he excelled in the lighter weight classes.[3] Gaining the nicknames “Punk” and “McNasty” due to his combative and fiery disposition, he enjoyed and cultivated that tough guy image; he also made some good friends, and graduated from high school in 1954.[8][13][12]

Naval training, early assignments, first marriage and children

McCain (front right) with his squadron, in 1965.Following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, McCain entered the United States Naval Academy. McCain was a rebellious midshipman, and his career at the Naval Academy was ambivalent and lackluster.[14] He had his share of run-ins with the faculty and leadership; each year he was given over 100 demerits (for unshined shoes, formation faults, talking out of place, and the like),[14] earning him membership in the “Century Club”.[3] He did not take well to those of higher rank arbitrarily wielding power over him — “It was bullshit, and I resented the hell out of it”[14] — and would sometimes intervene when he saw it being done to others.[3] At 5 foot 7 inches[15] and 127 pounds[16] (1.70 m and 58 kg), he competed as a lightweight boxer for three years, where he lacked skills but was fearless and “didn’t have a reverse gear,” as he later put it.[16] Possessed of a strong intelligence,[17] he did well in a few subjects that interested him, such as English literature, history and government.[3][14] Despite his low standing, he was a leader among his fellow midshipmen,[14] especially in organizing off-Yard activities; one classmate said that “being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck.”[14] Despite his difficulties, he later wrote that he never wavered in his desire to show his father and family that he was of the same mettle as his naval forbears. Dropping out was unthinkable, and so he successfully completed his training and graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958; he was sixth from the bottom in class rank,[18] 894th out of 899.[14]

McCain was then commissioned an ensign, and spent two and a half years as a naval aviator in training at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida and Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas,[19] flying A-1 Skyraiders.[20] He earned a reputation as a party man, as he drove a Corvette, dated an exotic dancer named “Marie the Flame of Florida”, and, as he would later say, “generally misused my good health and youth.”[10] He began as a subpar flier, with limited patience for studying aviation manuals.[21] During a practice run in Texas, his engine quit while landing, and his aircraft crashed into Corpus Christi Bay, though he escaped without major injuries.[21][19] He graduated from flight school in 1960,[22] and became a naval pilot of attack aircraft.

McCain was then stationed on the aircraft carriers USS Intrepid and USS Enterprise,[23] in the Caribbean Sea and in deployments to the Mediterranean Sea.[21] He was on alert duty on Enterprise when it imposed a blockade and quarantine of Cuba during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.[24][22] His aviation skills improved, but he had another close call when he and his plane emerged intact from a collision with power lines, after flying too low over Spain.[21] He was rotated back to shore duty, serving as a flight instructor at Naval Air Station Meridian in Mississippi, where McCain Field was named for his grandfather.[23]

By 1964 he was in a relationship with Carol Shepp, a model originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; they had known each other at Annapolis and she had married and then divorced one of his classmates.[19][23] On July 3, 1965, McCain married Shepp in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[18] McCain adopted her two children Doug and Andy,[25] who were five and three years old at the time;[23] he and Carol then had a daughter named Sidney in September 1966.[26][27][28]

In fall 1965, he had his third close call when a flameout over Norfolk, Virginia led to his ejecting safely, and his plane crashed.[21] McCain grew frustrated with his training role, and requested a combat assignment.[20] In December 1966, McCain was assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal, flying A-4 Skyhawks with the VA-46 “Clansmen”;[29] his service there began with tours in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.[30] By this time, McCain’s father had risen in the ranks, making rear admiral in 1958 and vice admiral in 1963.[31] In May of 1967, his father was promoted to four-star admiral, and became Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, stationed in London.[4]

Vietnam operations
John Sidney McCain III
August 29, 1936 – present
Allegiance United States of America
Service/branch United States Navy (Naval aviation)
Years of service 1958–1981
Rank Captain
Unit USS Forrestal (CV-59)
USS Oriskany (CV-34)
Battles/wars Vietnam
Awards Silver Star
Legion of Merit
Distinguished Flying Cross
Bronze Star
Purple Heart
Other work Naval liaison to the United States Senate, United States Senator from Arizona, Presidential candidate
In Spring 1967, Forrestal was assigned to join Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing campaign against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.[18][32] The alpha strikes flown from Forrestal were against specific, pre-selected infrastructure targets such as arms depots, factories, and bridges;[33] they were quite dangerous due to the Soviet-designed and supplied anti-aircraft system fielded by the North Vietnamese Air Defense Force.[33] McCain’s first five attack missions over North Vietnam went without incident,[20] and while still unconcerned with minor Navy regulations, McCain had by now garnered the reputation of a serious aviator.[24] McCain and his fellow pilots were already frustrated by Rolling Thunder’s infamous micromanagement from Washington;[33] he would later write that “The target list was so restricted that we had to go back and hit the same targets over and over again…. Most of our pilots flying the missions believed that our targets were virtually worthless. In all candor, we thought our civilian commanders were complete idiots who didn’t have the least notion of what it took to win the war.”[32]

By then a Lieutenant Commander, McCain was again almost killed in action on July 29, 1967 while serving on Forrestal, operating at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin. The crew was preparing to launch attacks, when a Zuni rocket from an F-4 Phantom was accidentally fired across the carrier’s deck. The rocket struck McCain’s A-4E Skyhawk as the jet was preparing for launch.[34][35] The impact ruptured the Skyhawk’s fuel tank, which ignited the fuel and knocked two bombs loose. McCain escaped from his jet by climbing out of the cockpit, working himself to the nose of the jet, and jumping off its refueling probe onto the burning deck of the aircraft carrier. Ninety seconds after the impact, one of the bombs exploded underneath his airplane. McCain was struck in the legs and chest by shrapnel. The ensuing fire killed 132 sailors, injured 62 others, destroyed at least 20 aircraft, and took 24 hours to control.[36] A day or two after the Forrestal incident, McCain told New York Times reporter R. W. Apple, Jr. in Saigon that, “It’s a difficult thing to say. But now that I’ve seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I’m not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam.”[37] But such a change of course was unlikely; as McCain said, “I always wanted to be in the Navy. I was born into it and I never really considered another profession. But I always had trouble with the regimentation.”[37]

As Forrestal headed for repairs, McCain volunteered to join the VA-163 “Saints” on board the short-staffed USS Oriskany. This ship had earlier endured its own deck fire disaster[20] and its squadrons had suffered heavy losses during Rolling Thunder, with one-third of its pilots killed or captured during 1967.[20] McCain joined Oriskany in September 1967, for a tour he expected would finish early the next summer.[38] By late October 1967, McCain had flown a total of 22 bombing missions.[39]

Prisoner of war

John McCain being pulled out of Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi and about to become a prisoner of war.[40] October 26, 1967.On October 26, 1967, McCain was flying as part of a 20-plane attack against a thermal power plant in central Hanoi, a heavily defended target area that had previously been off-limits to U.S. raids.[41][42] McCain’s A-4 Skyhawk was shot down by a Soviet-made SA-2 anti-aircraft missile[42] while pulling up after dropping its bombs.[43] McCain fractured both arms and a leg in being hit and ejecting from his plane.[44] He nearly drowned after he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake in Hanoi.[41] After he regained consciousness, a mob gathered around, spat on him, kicked him, and stripped him of his clothes.[45] Others crushed his shoulder with the butt of a rifle and bayoneted him in his left foot and abdominal area; he was then transported to Hanoi’s main Hoa Loa Prison, nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton” by American POWs.[45][46] Although McCain was badly wounded, his captors refused to give him medical care unless he gave them military information; they beat and interrogated him, but McCain only offered his name, rank, serial number, and date of birth.[45] Soon thinking he was near death, McCain said he would give them information if taken to the hospital, hoping he could then put them off once he was treated.[47] A prison doctor came and said it was too late, as McCain was about to die anyway.[45] Only when the North Vietnamese discovered that his father was a top admiral did they give him medical care[45] and announce his capture. At this point, two days after McCain’s plane went down, that event and his status as a POW made the front pages of The New York Times[37] and The Washington Post.[48]

McCain spent six weeks in the Hoa Loa hospital, receiving marginal care.[41] He was interviewed by a French television reporter whose report was carried on CBS, and was observed by a variety of North Vietnamese, including the famous General Vo Nguyen Giap.[45] Many of the North Vietnamese observers assumed that he must be part of America’s political-military-economic elite.[45] Now having lost 50 pounds, in a chest cast, and with his hair turned white,[41] McCain was sent to a prisoner-of-war camp on the outskirts of Hanoi nicknamed “the Plantation”[49] in December 1967, into a cell with two other Americans who did not expect him to live a week (one was Bud Day, a future Medal of Honor recipient); they nursed McCain and kept him alive.[50] In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years.[45] In July 1968, McCain’s father was named Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC), stationed in Honolulu and commander of all U.S. forces in the Vietnam theater.[4] McCain was immediately offered a chance to return home early:[41] the North Vietnamese wanted a worldwide propaganda coup by appearing merciful, and also wanted to show other POWs that elites like McCain were willing to be treated preferentially.[45] McCain turned down the offer of repatriation, due to the Code of Conduct principle of “first in, first out”: he would only accept the offer if every man taken in before him was released as well.[51] McCain’s refusal to be released was even remarked upon by North Vietnamese senior negotiator Le Duc Tho to U.S. envoy Averell Harriman during the ongoing Paris Peace Talks.[52]

In August of 1968, a program of vigorous torture methods began on McCain, using rope bindings into painful positions, and beatings every two hours, at the same time as he was suffering from dysentery.[45][41] Teeth and bones were broken again, as was McCain’s spirit; the beginning of a suicide attempt was stopped by guards.[41] After four days of this, McCain signed an anti-American propaganda “confession” that said he was a “black criminal” and an “air pirate”,[41] although he used stilted Communist jargon and ungrammatical language to signal that the statement was forced.[53] He felt then and always that he had dishonored his country, his family, his comrades and himself by his statement,[54] but as he would later write, “I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.”[45] His injuries to this day have left him incapable of raising his arms above his head.[13] Two weeks later his captors tried to force him to sign a second statement, and this time, his will to resist restored, he refused.[45] He received two to three beatings per week because of his continued refusal.[55] Other American POWs were similarly tortured and maltreated in order to extract “confessions”.[45] On one occasion when McCain was physically coerced to give the names of members of his squadron, he supplied them the names of the Green Bay Packers’ offensive line.[53] On another occasion, a guard surreptitiously loosened McCain’s painful rope bindings for a night; when the guard later saw McCain on Christmas Day, he stood next to McCain and silently drew a cross in the dirt with his foot[56] (decades later, McCain would relate this Good Samaritan story during his presidential campaigns, as a testament to faith and humanity[57][58]). McCain refused to meet with various anti-war peace groups coming to Hanoi, such as those led by David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, and Rennie Davis, not wanting to give either them or the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory based on his connection to his father.[45]

In May 1969, U.S. Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird began publicly questioning North Vietnamese treatment of U.S. prisoners.[59] On June 5, 1969, a Radio Hanoi broadcast denied any mistreatment, and quoted from a statement it attributed to McCain: “I have bombed the cities, towns and villages and caused injuries and even death for the people of North Vietnam. After I was captured, I was taken to a hospital in Hanoi where I received very good medical treatment.”[59] In October 1969, treatment of McCain and the other POWs suddenly improved, after a badly beaten and weakened POW who had been released that summer disclosed to the world press the conditions to which they were being subjected.[45] In December 1969, McCain was transferred back to the Hoa Loa “Hanoi Hilton”;[45] his solitary confinement ended in March 1970.[45] McCain continued to refuse to see anti-war groups or journalists sympathetic to the North Vietnamese regime;[45] to one visitor who did speak with him, McCain later wrote, “I told him I had no remorse about what I did, and that I would do it over again if the same opportunity presented itself.”[45] McCain and other prisoners were moved around to different camps at times, but conditions over the next several years were generally more tolerable than they had been before.[45] Back at the “Hanoi Hilton” from November 1971 onward,[45] McCain and the other POWs cheered the intense, Hanoi-focused, B-52-led U.S. “Christmas Bombing” campaign of December 1972 — whose explosions lit the night sky and shook the walls of the camp, and whose daily orders were issued by McCain’s father, knowing his son was in the vicinity — as a forceful measure to force North Vietnam to terms.[45][60]

Altogether, McCain was held as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam for five and a half years. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, ending direct U.S. involvement in the war, but the Operation Homecoming arrangements for POWs took longer; McCain was finally released from captivity on March 15, 1973,[61] having been a POW for almost an extra five years due to his refusal to accept the out-of-sequence repatriation offer.[62]

Return to United States

President Richard Nixon greets the released John McCain at a White House reception honoring returning POWs. May 24, 1973.Upon his return to the United States, McCain was reunited with his wife Carol, who had suffered her own crippling, near-death ordeal during his captivity, due to an automobile accident in December 1969 that left her facing months of operations and physical therapy;[63] by the time he saw her again she was four inches shorter, on crutches, and substantially heavier.[64] As a returned POW, McCain became a celebrity of sorts: The New York Times ran a front-page photo of him getting off the plane at Clark Air Base in the Philippines;[65] he published a long cover story describing his ordeal and his support for the Nixon administration’s handling of the war in U.S. News & World Report;[45] he participated in several parades and personal appearances; and a photograph of him on crutches shaking the hand of President Richard Nixon at a White House reception for returning POWs became iconic.[63] The McCains became frequent guests of honor at dinners hosted by Governor of California Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Reagan;[66] Ronald Reagan had been admired by McCain and other POWs even while in captivity, and would serve as a later role model for McCain.[67]

McCain underwent treatment for his injuries, and attended the National War College in Fort McNair in Washington, D.C. during 1973–1974.[63][22] There he studied intensively the history of Vietnam and of the war; he came to terms with what had happened, as well as with the anti-war movement in the U.S. and those who had evaded the draft.[68] He returned to Saigon in November 1974, to speak at the South Vietnamese war college, five months before the city fell.[69] He resolved not to become a “professional POW” but to move forward and rebuild his life.[68] Few thought McCain could fly again, but he was determined to try, and he engaged in nine months of grueling, painful physical therapy, especially to get his knees to bend again.[64] By late 1974 McCain had recuperated just enough to pass his flight physical[64] and have his flight status reinstated,[63] and he became Executive Officer and then Commanding Officer of the VA-174 “Hellrazors”, which was an A-7 Corsair II Navy training squadron stationed at Naval Air Station Cecil Field outside Jacksonville, Florida and the largest attack squadron in the Navy.[63][22][70] McCain’s leadership abilities were credited with turning around a mediocre unit, improving its aircraft readiness and pilot safety metrics and winning the squadron its first Meritorious Unit Commendation.[64] While some senior officers resented McCain’s presence as favoritism due to his father, junior officers rallied to him and helped him qualify for A-7 carrier landings.[64]

During their time in Jacksonville, the McCains’ marriage began to falter.[71] McCain had extramarital affairs,[71] and he would later say, “My marriage’s collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity more than it was to Vietnam, and I cannot escape blame by pointing a finger at the war. The blame was entirely mine.”[71] His wife Carol would later echo those sentiments, saying “I attribute [the breakup of our marriage] more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else.”[71]

Senate liaison and second marriage

Interview with McCain on April 24, 1973, after his return home.In 1976, McCain briefly thought of running for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida.[72] Instead, based upon the recommendation of Admiral James L. Holloway III,[63] in 1977 McCain was appointed the Navy’s liaison to the U.S. Senate.[72] Returning to the Washington, D.C. area, McCain soon became the leader of the Russell Senate Office Building liaison operation, and would later say it represented “[my] real entry into the world of politics and the beginning of my second career as a public servant.”[63] McCain was influenced by senators of both parties, and especially by a strong bond with Republican Senator John Tower of Texas, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.[63] McCain was still living with his wife, although they had been briefly separated soon after returning to Washington.[64]

In 1979, while attending a military reception in Hawaii, McCain met and fell in love with Cindy Lou Hensley, 17 years his junior, a teacher from Phoenix, Arizona who was the daughter of James Willis Hensley, a wealthy Anheuser-Busch distributor, and Marguerite Smith Hensley.[71] By then McCain’s naval career had stalled, as he had poor annual physicals and he had been given no major sea command.[73] It was unlikely he would ever be promoted to admiral as his grandfather and father had been; he had no base from which to go into politics, and he was at a turning point.[64]

McCain filed for and obtained an uncontested divorce from his wife Carol in Florida on April 2, 1980;[25] he gave her a generous settlement, including houses in Virginia and Florida and financial support for her ongoing medical treatments, and they would remain on good terms.[71] McCain and Hensley were married on May 17, 1980[18] in Phoenix, Arizona, with Senators William Cohen and Gary Hart as best man and groomsman.[71] McCain’s children were upset with him and did not attend the wedding,[64] but after several years they reconciled with him and Cindy.[64][27] Carol became a personal assistant to Nancy Reagan and later head of the White House Visitors Center.[74]

McCain retired from the Navy in 1981 as a Captain.[15] During his military career, he received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the Purple Heart, and a Distinguished Flying Cross.[75]

Political career

U.S. Congressman and more children
Living in Phoenix, McCain went to work for his new father-in-law Jim Hensley’s large Anheuser-Busch beer distributorship as Vice President of Public Relations,[71] where he gained political support among the local business community,[72] meeting powerful figures such as banker Charles Keating, Jr., real estate developer Fife Symington III,[71] and newspaper publisher Darrow “Duke” Tully,[72] all the while looking for an electoral opportunity.[71] When John Jacob Rhodes, Jr., the longtime Republican congressman from Arizona’s 1st congressional district, announced his retirement, McCain ran for the seat as a Republican in 1982.[76] McCain faced two experienced state legislators in the Republican nomination process, and as a newcomer to the state was hit with repeated charges of being a carpetbagger.[71] Finally at a candidates forum he gave a famous refutation to a voter making the charge:

Listen, pal. I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. We have to live in all parts of the country, all parts of the world. I wish I could have had the luxury, like you, of growing up and living and spending my entire life in a nice place like the First District of Arizona, but I was doing other things. As a matter of fact, when I think about it now, the place I lived longest in my life was Hanoi. [71][77]

A Phoenix Gazette columnist would later label this “the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I’ve ever heard.”[71] With the assistance of some local political endorsements and his Washington connections, as well as effective television advertising, partly financed by $167,000 that his wife lent to his campaign (which helped him outspend his opponents),[72] and with support of Tully’s The Arizona Republic (the state’s most powerful newspaper),[72] McCain won the highly contested primary election in September 1982.[71] By comparison, the general election two months later became an easy lopsided victory for him in the heavily Republican district.[71]

McCain made an immediate impression in Congress. He was elected the president of the 1983 Republican freshman class of representatives.[71] He was assigned to the Committee on Interior Affairs, the Select Committee on Aging, and eventually to the chairmanship of the Republican Task Force on Indian Affairs.[78] He 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.[79] McCain’s politics at this point were mainly in line with President Ronald Reagan, from issues ranging from the economy to the Soviet Union;[80] however, his vote against a resolution allowing President Reagan to keep U.S. Marines deployed as part of the Multinational Force in Lebanon, on the grounds that he “[did] not foresee obtainable objectives in Lebanon,” would seem prescient after the catastrophic Beirut barracks bombing a month later;[71] this vote would also start his national media reputation as a political maverick.[71] McCain won re-election to the House easily in 1984.[71] In the new term McCain got the Indian Economic Development Act of 1985 signed into law.[81] In 1985 he returned to Vietnam with Walter Cronkite for a CBS News special, and saw the monument put up next to where the famous downed “air pirate Ma Can” had been pulled from the Hanoi lake;[82] it was the first of several return trips McCain would make there.[82] In 1986 he broke ranks again in voting to successfully override Reagan’s veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act that imposed sanctions against South Africa.[83]

In 1984 McCain and his wife Cindy had their first child together, daughter Meghan. She was followed in 1986 by son John Sidney IV (known as “Jack”), and in 1988 by son James.[84] In 1991, Cindy McCain brought an abandoned three-month old girl, who badly needed medical treatment for a severe cleft palate, to the U.S. from a Bangladeshi orphanage run by Mother Teresa;[85] the McCains decided to adopt her, and named her Bridget.[86] A drawn-out adoption process began, slowed down by uncertainty over the exact fate of the girl’s father,[87] but in 1993 the adoption was ruled final.[88] McCain then stood by his wife when she disclosed in 1994 a previous addiction to painkillers and said that she hoped the publicity would give other drug addicts courage in their struggles.[89] Beginning in the early 1990s, McCain began attending the 6,000-member North Phoenix Baptist Church in Arizona, part of the Southern Baptist Convention, later saying “[I found] the message and fundamental nature more fulfilling than I did in the Episcopal church. … They’re great believers in redemption, and so am I.”[90] Nevertheless he still identified himself as Episcopalian,[90] and while Cindy and two of their children were baptized into the Baptist church, he was not.[90]

U.S. Senator

Senator McCain’s official Senate photoMcCain decided to run for United States Senator from Arizona in 1986, when longtime American conservative icon and Arizona fixture Barry Goldwater retired.[91] No Republican would oppose McCain in the primary, and as described by his press secretary Torie Clarke, McCain’s political strength convinced his most formidable possible Democratic opponent, Governor Bruce Babbitt, not to run for the senate seat.[91] Instead McCain faced a weaker opponent, former state legislator Richard Kimball, a young politician with an offbeat personality who slept on his office floor[92] and whom McCain’s allies in the Arizona press characterized as having “terminal weirdness.”[91] McCain’s associations with Duke Tully, who by now had been disgraced for having concocted a fictitious military record, as well as revelations of father-in-law Jim Hensley’s past brushes with the law, became campaign issues, but in the end McCain won the election easily with 60 percent of the vote to Kimball’s 40 percent.[91][72]

Upon entering the Senate in 1987, McCain became a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, with whom he had formerly done his Navy liaison work; he also joined the Commerce Committee and the Indian Affairs Committee.[91] He has often supported the Native American agenda, advocating self-governance and sovereignty, supporting Native American gambling enterprises and tribe control of adoptions. “Never deceived them,” McCain once said, “They have been deceived too many times in the last 200 years.”[93]

McCain was a strong supporter of the Gramm-Rudman legislation that enforced automatic spending cuts in the case of budget deficits.[94] McCain soon gained national visibility, delivering an emotional, impassioned speech about his time as a POW at the 1988 Republican National Convention[95] being mentioned by the press as a short list vice-presidential running mate for Republican nominee George H. W. Bush,[95][91] and being named chairman of Veterans for Bush.[96] In 1989, he became a staunch defender of his friend John Tower’s doomed nomination for U.S. Secretary of Defense; McCain butted heads with Moral Majority co-founder Paul Weyrich — who was challenging Tower regarding alleged heavy drinking and extramarital affairs[91] — and thus began McCain’s difficult relationship with the Christian right, as he would later write that Weyrich was “a pompous self-serving son of a bitch.”[91]

Keating Five
McCain’s upwards political trajectory was jolted when he became enmeshed in the Keating Five scandal of the 1980s. In the context of the Savings and Loan crisis of that decade, Charles Keating Jr.’s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, a subsidiary of his American Continental Corporation, was insolvent due to some bad loans. In order to regain solvency, Lincoln sold investment in a real estate venture as a FDIC insured savings account. This caught the eye of federal regulators who were looking to shut it down. It is alleged that Keating contacted five senators to whom he made contributions. McCain was one of those senators and he met at least twice in 1987 with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, seeking to prevent the government’s seizure of Lincoln. Between 1982 and 1987, McCain received approximately $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates.[97] In addition, McCain’s wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family and baby-sitter made at least nine trips at Keating’s expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. After learning Keating was in trouble over Lincoln, McCain paid for the air trips totaling $13,433.[98]

Eventually the real estate venture failed, leaving many broke. Federal regulators ultimately filed a $1.1 billion civil racketeering and fraud suit against Keating, accusing him of siphoning Lincoln’s deposits to his family and into political campaigns. The five senators came under investigation for attempting to influence the regulators. In the end, none of the senators were convicted of any crime, although McCain was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising “poor judgment” for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating.[99] On his Keating Five experience, 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.”[99]

McCain survived the political scandal by, in part, becoming friendly with the political press;[100] with his blunt manner, he became a frequent guest on television news shows, especially once the 1991 Gulf War began and his military and POW experience became in demand.[100] McCain began campaigning against lobbyist money in politics from then on. His 1992 re-election campaign found his opposition split between Democratic community and civil rights activist Claire Sargent and impeached and removed former Governor Evan Mecham running as an independent.[100] Although Mecham garnered some hard-core conservative support, Sargent’s campaign never gathered momentum and the Keating Five affair did not dominate discussion.[100][101] McCain again won handily,[100] getting 56 percent of the vote to Sargent’s 32 percent and Mecham’s 11 percent.

A “maverick” senator

Senator John McCainIn January 1993 McCain was named chairman of the board of directors of the International Republican Institute,[102] a non-profit democracy promotion organization with informal ties to the Republican party. The position would allow McCain to bolster his foreign policy expertise and credentials.[102]

McCain also branched out and worked with Democratic senators. He was a member of the 1991–1993 Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, chaired by Democrat and fellow Vietnam War veteran John Kerry, convened to investigate the fate of U.S. service personnel listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War. The committee’s work included more visits to Vietnam and getting the Department of Defense to declassify over a million pages of relevant documents.[103] The committee’s final report, which McCain endorsed, stated that, “While the Committee has some evidence suggesting the possibility a POW may have survived to the present, and while some information remains yet to be investigated, there is, at this time, no compelling evidence that proves that any American remains alive in captivity in Southeast Asia.”[104] After many years of disliking Kerry due to his actions with Vietnam Veterans Against the War,[105] McCain developed “unbounded respect and admiration” for Kerry during the hearings.[105][106] The actions of the committee were designed to allow for improved ties between the two countries;[107] McCain pressed for normalization of diplomatic relations with Vietnam, partly because it was “a time to heal … it’s a way of ending the war; it’s time to move on,”[108] and partly because he saw it in the U.S. national interest to do so,[108] in particular envisioning Vietnam as a valuable regional counterbalance against China.[109] In 1994 the Senate passed a resolution, sponsored by Kerry and McCain, that called for an end to the existing trade embargo against Vietnam; it was intended to pave the way for normalization.[110] During his time on the committee and afterward, McCain was vilified as a fraud,[108] traitor,[105] or “Manchurian Candidate”[109] by some POW/MIA activists who believed that there were large numbers of American servicemen still being held against their will in Southeast Asia.[108] McCain said that he and Kerry had gotten the Vietnamese to give them full access to their records, and that he had spent thousands of hours trying to find real, not fabricated, evidence of surviving Americans.[103] In 1995, President Bill Clinton normalized diplomatic relations with the country of Vietnam,[109] with McCain’s and Kerry’s visible support during the announcement giving Clinton, who did not serve in the military, some political cover.[109][105]

Having survived the Keating Five scandal, McCain made attacking the corrupting influence of big money on American politics his signature issue.[83] Starting in late 1994 he worked with Democratic Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform;[83] their McCain-Feingold bill would attempt to put limits on “soft money”, funds that corporations, unions, and other organizations could donate to political parties, which would then be funneled to political candidates in circumvention of “hard money” donation limits.[83] From the start, McCain and Feingold’s efforts were opposed by large money interests, by incumbents in both parties, by those who felt spending limits impinged on free political speech, and by those who wanted to lessen the power of what they saw as media bias.[83] On the other hand, it garnered considerable sympathetic coverage in the national media, and from 1995 on, “maverick Republican” became a label frequently applied to McCain in stories.[83] He has used the term himself, and in fact one of the chapters in his 2002 book Worth the Fighting For is titled “Maverick”.[111] The first version of the McCain-Feingold Act was introduced into the Senate in September 1995; it was filibustered in 1996 and never came to a vote.[112]

McCain also attacked pork barrel spending within Congress, believing that the practice did not contribute to the greater national interest.[83] Towards this end he was instrumental in pushing through approval of the Line Item Veto Act of 1996,[83] which gave the president the power to veto individual items of pork. Although this was one of McCain’s biggest Senate victories,[83] the effect was short-lived as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the act unconstitutional in 1998.[113] In a more symbolic attempt to limit congressional privilege, he introduced an amendment in 1994 to remove free VIP parking for members of Congress at D.C. area airports; his annoyed colleagues rejected the notion and accused McCain of grandstanding.[83] McCain was one of only four Republicans in Congress to vote against the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act in 1995,[114] and was the only Republican senator to vote against the Freedom to Farm Act in 1996.[115] He was one of only five senators to vote against the Telecommunications Act of 1996.[116]

At the start of the 1996 presidential election, McCain served as national campaign chairman for the highly unsuccessful Republican nomination effort of Texas Senator Phil Gramm.[117] After Gramm dropped out, McCain endorsed eventual nominee Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole,[117] and was again on the short list of possible vice-presidential picks.[118][100] McCain formed a close bond with Dole, based in part on their shared near-death war experiences;[118] he nominated Dole at the 1996 Republican National Convention and was a key friend and advisor to Dole throughout his ultimately losing general election campaign.[118]

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,[83] but responded by saying that, “Literally every business in America falls under the Commerce Committee” and that he restricted those contributions to $1,000 and thus was not part of the big-money nature of the campaign finance problem.[83] In that year, Time magazine named McCain as one of the “25 Most Influential People in America”.[119] McCain used his chairmanship to take on the tobacco industry in 1998, proposing legislation that would increase cigarette taxes in order to fund anti-smoking campaigns and reduce the number of teenage smokers, increase research money on health studies, and help states pay for smoking-related health care costs.[120][83] The industry spent some $40–50 million in national advertising in response;[120][83] while McCain’s bill had the support of the Clinton administration and many public health groups, most Republican senators opposed it, stating it would create an unwieldy new bureaucracy.[120] The bill failed to gain cloture twice[120] and was seen as a bad political defeat for McCain.[120] During 1998 a revised version of the McCain-Feingold Act came up for Senate consideration, but while having majority support it again fell victim to a filibuster and failed to gain cloture.[112]

McCain easily won re-election to a third senate term in November 1998, gaining 69 percent of the vote to 27 percent for his Democratic opponent, environmental lawyer Ed Ranger.[83] Ranger was a motorcycle enthusiast[121] and political novice who had only recently returned from Mexico.[122] McCain took no “soft money” during the campaign, but still raised $4.4 million for his bid, explaining that he had needed it in case the tobacco companies or other Washington special interests mounted a strong effort against him.[83] One of Ranger’s campaigning points had been that McCain was really more interested in running for president;[83] McCain indeed created a presidential exploratory committee the following month.[121]

During 1999, the McCain-Feingold Act once again came up for consideration, but the same failure to gain cloture befell it again.[112] During that year, McCain shared the Profile in Courage Award with Feingold for their work in trying to enact this campaign finance reform; McCain was cited for opposing his own party on the bill at a time when he was trying to win the party’s presidential nomination.[123]

2000 presidential campaign
See also: United States presidential primaries, 2000
McCain’s co-authored, best-selling family memoir, Faith of My Fathers, published in August 1999, helped propel his presidential run for 2000.[124] McCain had initially planned on announcing his candidacy and beginning active campaigning in April 1999, but the state of the U.S. involvement in the Kosovo War caused him to simply state without fanfare that he would be a candidate.[125] McCain formally announced his candidacy on September 27, 1999 in Nashua, New Hampshire,[126] 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.”[124] 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.[127] Indeed, top-echelon Republican contenders such as Lamar Alexander, John Kasich, and Dan Quayle were already withdrawing from the race due to Bush’s strength.[127] 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;[124] 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.[124][128]

Following political consultant Mike Murphy’s advice,[129] McCain skipped the Iowa caucus, where his lack of base party support would hurt him in organizing, and focused instead on the New Hampshire primary, where his message held appeal to independents and where Bush’s father had never been very popular.[129] He 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 made over two hundred stops, talking in every town in New Hampshire in an example of “retail politics” that overcame Bush’s familiar name. McCain was famously accessible to the press, using free media to compensate for his lack of funds;[124] 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.”[130] On February 1, 2000, he won the primary with 49 percent of the vote to Bush’s 30 percent, and suddenly was the celebrity of the hour. Other Republican candidates had dropped out or failed to gain traction, and McCain became Bush’s only serious opponent. Analysts predicted that a McCain victory in the crucial South Carolina primary might give his insurgency campaign unstoppable momentum;[131][132][133] a degree of fear and panic crept into not only the Bush campaign[124] but also the Republican establishment and movement conservatism.[132][133]

The battle between Bush and McCain for South Carolina has entered American political lore as one of the nastiest, dirtiest, and most brutal ever.[124][134][135] On the one hand, Bush switched his label for himself from “compassionate conservative” to “reformer with results”,[136] as part of trying to co-opt McCain’s popular message of reform.[124][136] On the other hand, a variety of business and interest groups that McCain had challenged in the past now pounded McCain with negative ads.[124] The day that a new poll showed McCain five points ahead in the state,[137] Bush allied himself on stage with a marginal and controversial veterans activist named J. Thomas Burch, who accused McCain of having “abandoned the veterans” on POW/MIA and Agent Orange issues: “He came home from Vietnam and forgot us.”[124][137] Incensed,[137] McCain ran ads accusing Bush of lying and comparing Bush to Bill Clinton,[124] which Bush complained was “about as low a blow as you can give in a Republican primary.”[124] But that was not the worst. A mysterious semi-underground campaign began against McCain, delivered by push polls, faxes, e-mails, flyers, and the like, and comprising a series of smears: most famously, that he had fathered a black child out of wedlock (a hurtful reference to the McCains’ dark-skinned daughter Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh, and thought to be an especially effective slur in a Deep South state where race was still central[135]), but also that his wife Cindy was a drug addict, that he was a homosexual, that he was a “Manchurian Candidate” traitor or mentally unstable from his North Vietnam POW days.[124][134] The Bush campaign strongly denied any involvement with these attacks;[134] Bush said he would fire anyone who ran defamatory push polls.[138] Above ground, Bush mobilized the state’s evangelical voters,[124] and conservative über-broadcaster Rush Limbaugh entered the fray supporting Bush and going on at length about how McCain was a favorite of liberal Democrats.[139] Polls swung in Bush’s favor; by not having accepted federal matching funds for its campaign, Bush had unlimited money to spend on advertisements, while McCain was near his limit.[139] With three days to go, McCain shut down his negative ads against Bush and tried to stress a positive image.[139] McCain lost South Carolina on February 19, with 42 percent of the vote against Bush’s 53 percent,[140] allowing Bush to regain the momentum.[140]

While South Carolina was known for legendary hard-knuckled political consultant Lee Atwater[135] and rough elections,[134] 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.”[141] 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,[142] 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.[135][143] In contrast, in 2004 National Review’s Byron York would try to debunk many of the South Carolina smear reports as unfounded legend.[144] McCain’s campaign manager said in 2004 they never found out where the smear attacks came from,[145] while McCain himself never doubted their existence;[124] McCain would say of the rumor spreaders, “I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.”[86] McCain regretted some aspects of his own campaign there as well, in particular changing his stance on flying the Confederate flag at the state capitol from a “very offensive” “symbol of racism and slavery” to “a symbol of heritage”;[124][134] he would later write, “I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So I chose to compromise my principles.”[134] According to one report, the South Carolina experience overall left McCain in a “very dark place.”[134]

McCain’s campaign never completely recovered from his defeat in South Carolina, although he did rebound partially by winning in Arizona and Michigan on February 22,[146] mocking Governor Hull’s opposition in the former,[124] and capturing many Democratic and independent votes in the latter;[146] however, he made serious mistakes that negated any momentum he may have regained with the Michigan victory. Still reeling from his South Carolina experience, he made a February 28 speech in Virginia Beach that criticized as divisive conservative Christian leaders such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell,[134] 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.”[147] McCain lost the Virginia primary on February 29, as well as one in Washington.[148] 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.[149] 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[150] and getting into a verbal battle with leaders of the Religious Right.[151] With no hope of catching Bush’s delegate lead after Super Tuesday, McCain withdrew from the race on March 9, 2000.[152]

2001–2004

John McCain’s Gallup Poll favorable/unfavorable ratings, 1999–2007.[153] Before his 2000 presidential run he is not well known nationally. His positives peak around the time of New Hampshire primary win that year, although his negatives shoot up temporarily as well. Throughout most of the 2000s he has a strong “net favorable” position. His ratings decline during 2007 due to his immigration stance and several other factors which corresponded with a failing presidential campaign, then rebound at the end of the year along with the resurrection of his campaign, albeit with higher negatives than before.With no love lost between them, McCain began 2001 by breaking against the new George W. Bush administration on a number of matters.[154] In January 2001 the latest iteration of McCain-Feingold was introduced into the Senate; it was opposed by Bush and most of the Republican establishment,[154] but helped by the 2000 election results, it passed the Senate in one form until procedural obstacles delayed it again.[155] In these few months McCain also opposed Bush on an HMO reform bill, on climate change measures, and on gun legislation.[154] Then in May 2001, McCain voted against the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001,[156] Bush’s $350 billion in tax breaks over 11 years, which became known as “the Bush tax cuts”. He was one of only two Republicans to do so,[154] saying that “I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief.”[157][156] Then when Republican Senator Jim Jeffords became an Independent, throwing control of the Senate to Democrats, McCain defended him against “self-appointed enforcers of party loyalty.”[154] Indeed, there was speculation at the time,[158] and in years since,[159] about McCain himself possibly leaving the Republican Party during the first half of 2001. Accounts have differed as to who initiated any discussions, and McCain has always adamantly denied, then and later, that he ever considered doing so.[154][159] In any case, all of this was enough for conservative Arizonan critics of McCain to organize rallies and recalls against him in May and June 2001.[154]

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, McCain became a supporter of Bush and an advocate for strong military measures against those responsible with respect to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan;[154] in a high-profile[154] late October 2001 Wall Street Journal op-ed piece he wrote, “America is under attack by a depraved, malevolent force that opposes our every interest and hates every value we hold dear.” After advocating an overwhelming, not increment, approach against the Taliban in Afghanistan, including the use of ground forces, he concluded, “War is a miserable business. Let’s get on with it.”[160] He and Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman wrote the legislation that created the 9/11 Commission,[161] while he and Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings co-sponsored the Aviation and Transportation Security Act that federalized airport security under what became the Transportation Security Administration.[162]

McCain-Feingold had been yet further delayed by the effects of September 11.[155] Finally in March 2002, aided by the aftereffects of the Enron scandal, it passed both House and Senate and, known formally as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, was signed into law by President Bush.[154] Seven years in the making, it was McCain’s greatest legislative achievement[154] and had become, in the words of one biographer, “one of the most famous pieces of federal legislation in modern American political history.”[163]

Meanwhile, in discussions over proposed U.S. action against Iraq, McCain was a strong supporter of the Bush position, labeling Saddam Hussein “a megalomaniacal tyrant whose cruelty and offense to the norms of civilization are infamous.”[154] Unequivocally stating that Iraq had substantial weapons of mass destruction, McCain stated that Iraq was “a clear and present danger to the United States of America.”[154] Accordingly he voted for the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002.[154] Both before and immediately after the Iraq War started in March 2003, McCain agreed with the Bush administration’s assertions that the U.S. forces would be treated as liberators by most of the Iraqi people.[164] In May 2003, McCain voted against the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, the second round of Bush tax cuts which served to extend and accelerate the first (which he had also voted against), saying it was unwise at a time of war.[156] By November 2003, after a trip to Iraq, McCain was publicly questioning Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq War, saying that “All of the trends are in the wrong direction” and that more U.S. troops were needed to handle the deteriorating situation in the Sunni Triangle.[165] By December 2004, McCain was bluntly announcing that he had lost confidence in Rumsfeld.[166]

In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, McCain was once again frequently mentioned for the vice-presidential slot, only this time as part of the Democratic ticket underneath nominee John Kerry.[167][168] Kerry and McCain had been close since their work on the early 1990s Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, and the pairing was seen as having great allure to independent voters,[167] with polls seeming to confirm the notion.[168] In June 2004, it was reported that Kerry had informally offered the slot to McCain several times, but McCain had declined, either on grounds that it would be infeasible and weaken the presidency[168] or that the vice-presidency held no appeal for McCain.[167] McCain’s office formally denied that any vice-presidential offer had taken place.[168] At the 2004 Republican National Convention, McCain enthusiastically supported Bush for re-election,[169] praising Bush’s management of the War on Terror since the September 11 attacks.[169] At the same time, McCain defended Kerry by labeling the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Kerry’s Vietnam war record as “dishonest and dishonorable” and urging the Bush campaign to condemn it.[170] By August 2004, McCain had the best favorable-to-unfavorable rating (55 percent to 19 percent) of any national politician.[169]

President Bush and Senator McCain discuss Social Security at the Tucson Convention Center, Tucson, Arizona, March 21, 2005.McCain was himself up for re-election as Senator in 2004. There was some talk of Representative Jeff Flake mounting a Republican primary challenge against McCain;[166] Stephen Moore, president of the ideologically-oriented Club for Growth (which attempts to defeat those it considers Republican in Name Only), led talk for the prospect,[171] saying “Our members loathe John McCain.”[172] Flake decided not to do it, later saying “I would have been whipped.”[171] In the general election McCain had his biggest margin of victory yet, garnering 77 percent of the vote against little-known Democrat Stuart Starky, an eighth grade math teacher.[173] whom The Arizona Republic termed a “sacrificial lamb”.[166] Exit polls showed that McCain even won a majority of the votes cast by Democrats.[174]

Following his 2000 presidential campaign, McCain became a frequent sight on entertainment programs in the television and film worlds, and even more so after 2004.[166] He hosted the October 12, 2002, episode of Saturday Night Live, making him the third U.S. Senator after Paul Simon and George McGovern, to host the show.

2005–2007
In the comedic news realm, he has been a regular guest on The Daily Show, and is a good friend of host Jon Stewart;[175] as of 2006 he had been on that show eleven times, more than anyone else. McCain appeared in slightly edgy bits on Late Night with Conan O’Brien,[176] and also appeared several times on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Late Show with David Letterman.[177] McCain made a brief cameo on the television show 24 in 2006[177] and also made a cameo in the 2005 summer movie Wedding Crashers. In the more serious realm, a television film entitled Faith Of My Fathers, based on McCain’s memoir of his experiences as a POW, aired on Memorial Day, 2005, on A&E.[178] McCain is also interviewed in the 2005 documentary Why We Fight by Eugene Jarecki.[179]

On judicial appointments, McCain was long a believer in judges who “would strictly interpret the Constitution,” and accordingly over the years would support the confirmations of Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito.[180] McCain also drew the ire of the originalist and similar legal movements in the U.S. in May 2005, however, when he led the so-called “Gang of 14″ in the Senate, which established a compromise that preserved the ability of senators to filibuster judicial nominees, but only in “extraordinary circumstances.” Breaking from his 2001 and 2003 votes, McCain supported the Bush tax cut extension in May 2006, known as the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, saying not to do so would amount to a tax increase.[156] 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 then failed in the House.[166] 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 tremendous grassroots opposition among talk radio listeners and others as an “amnesty” program, and twice failed to gain cloture in the Senate and thus failed.

In Baghdad with General David Petraeus, November 2007.Owing to his time as a POW, McCain has been recognized for his sensitivity to the detention and interrogation of detainees in the War on Terror. On October 3, 2005, McCain introduced the McCain Detainee Amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill for 2005. On October 5, 2005, the United States Senate voted 90-9 to support the amendment.[181] The amendment prohibits inhumane treatment of prisoners, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, by confining interrogations to the techniques in FM 34-52 Intelligence Interrogation.

Although Bush had threatened to veto the bill if McCain’s language was included,[182] the President announced on December 15, 2005 that he accepted McCain’s terms and would “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.”[183] Bush made clear his interpretation of this legislation on in a signing statement, reserving what he interpreted to be his Presidential constitutional authority in order to avoid further terrorist attacks.[184] Meanwhile, McCain continued questioning the progress of the war in Iraq. In September 2005, he questioned Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers’ habit of optimistic outlooks 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.”[185] In August 2006 he criticized the administration for continually understating the effectiveness of the insurgency: “We [have] not told the American people how tough and difficult this could be.”[166] From the beginning McCain strongly supported the Iraq troop surge of 2007;[186] the strategy’s opponents labeled it “McCain’s plan”[187] and University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato said, “McCain owns Iraq just as much as Bush does now.”[166] The surge and the war were quite unpopular during most of the year, even within the Republican Party,[17] as McCain’s presidential campaign was underway; faced with the consequences, McCain frequently responded, “I would much rather lose a campaign than a war.”[188]

2008 presidential campaign
This section contains information about one or more candidates in an upcoming or ongoing election.
Content may change as the election approaches.

See also: John McCain presidential campaign, 2008 and United States presidential election, 2008

John McCain officially announcing his 2008 run for President in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.McCain established his presidential exploratory committee on November 15, 2006,[166] then announced he was seeking the 2008 Presidential nomination from the Republican Party on the February 28, 2007, telecast of the Late Show With David Letterman.[189][190] McCain officially started his 2008 presidential campaign on April 25, 2007, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Should McCain win in 2008, he would be the oldest person to assume the Presidency in history at initial ascension to office, being 72 years old and surpassing Ronald Reagan, who was 69 years old at his inauguration following the 1980 election. He has dismissed concerns about his age and past health concerns (malignant melanoma in 2000), stating in 2005 that his health was “excellent.”[191][192] In the event of his victory in 2008, he would also become the first President of the United States to be born in a U.S. territory outside of the current 50 states.

McCain’s oft-cited strengths[193] as a presidential candidate for 2008 included national name recognition, sponsorship of major lobbying and campaign finance reform initiatives, leadership in exposing the Abramoff scandal,[194] his well-known military service and experience as a POW, his experience from the 2000 presidential campaign, extensive fundraising abilities, and strong advocacy for President Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004. During the 2006 election cycle, McCain attended 346 events[13] 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 a bid to finally gain support from the Christian right, McCain gave the May 2006 commencement address at Jerry Falwell’s Libert

17. FAYE BERNARDINO - February 13, 2008

As in the research I conducted, I choose Barack Obama, I like the thing that he proved to the people that not alldrug-users stay in their habits…
this Christian person prove what he can do..
and he can change the way of politics in US…
there are so many Americans that don’t believethat black americans can manage to lead a country, they always underestimated them and that is what Barack must prove to the people that not all what they are thinking is not true..
rememeber that we all are equal when God made us…

18. raymond g. funclara abp1-1 - February 14, 2008

UNDECIDED!!!!!!!!!!!! kxe d q nman cla klala eh….at anung krapatan qng magslita,kung alin ang dpat iboto kung ala aqng batayan kung alin ang dapat qng iboto….mas my concern aq s PILIPINAS, kesa s IMPERYALISTANG AMERIKA!!!! that’s all tank u…..

19. sambrano, sOnny p. - February 14, 2008

ndi ka naman galit nyan raymond., hehehe.,

20. keyzzel abp 1-1d - February 14, 2008

anyway sir im not very particular with american government….so that i cant give any reason y i choose this person…hillary clinton!!!!

hehehe…la lng nki2gaya lng….

21. Clarisse_ABP-1-1 - February 14, 2008

Wait ….i wasn’t updated in the american society

google lang akoh.. ayan.. hehe

“Government certainly isn’t the answer to all our problems. But good government — smart government — can be a partner for progress. It can help solve problems and accomplish things together we could never accomplish alone.”

i luk bak when she said this kind of approach in

her comprehensive government reform.

She has her own notion about or wat to do for

the government dat she wanted 2 handle.

I think she’s better 2 govern the country she has

b’coz of the fact that government for her

is not the mere solution 4 ol the problems.

And that’s true,

also we can apply her notion in our society right

now.

that’s all

22. jezaline - February 14, 2008

…hmmm…, the more i am pressured the more i am challenged….

23. daja halal - February 16, 2008

yes
this is my 11th comment

24. niya - May 7, 2008

faye we’ve read your comment and i would like to congratulate you for being the best researcher i’ve ever encountered. wahaha

25. careen_bps3-2 - November 27, 2008

these are the activities of the previous years right?…

challenging tlaga pag kau sir…

teach us to think such masochist obra..hehe…

26. James Remojo BSME I-2 - March 30, 2009

sir! grabe pa-assign. nyo sa kanila, pero sabagay makakatulong.

sir! siguro kahit na wala akong masyadong information, para sa akin ay halos inakala ng marami na ang pinakamalapit sa kategorya ang mananalo, ngunit pinatunayan na ang pagiging matatag at ang karapat-dapat ang siyang nangibabaw. Paano ba iyan si Obama ang nanalo kahit na iba pa ang lahi niya eh!.. naka-suvive siya!
ang totoo eh, malalim pa ang ibig sa ng salitang karapat-dapat dito.,
pero tignan nalang natin ang mga kaya niyang magawa,, magaling naman din ang mga negro ah!