Mccain, John (1936–)

The public ethos of Senator John S. McCain III (R-AZ) as a straight shooter has been shaped most principally by two events: his time as a prisoner of war and the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s. McCain entered the Navy and flew fighters during the Vietnam War. On October 26, 1967, he was shot down over Hanoi, breaking a knee and both arms but landing in a small lake. McCain spent more than 5 years in prison, 2 of those in solitary confinement, and he was repeatedly interrogated under torture. He refused the preferential treatment or early release offered by his captors, who were trying to propagandize on McCain's lineage as the son and grandson of Navy admirals. Finally released with his comrades on March 14, 1973, McCain returned to the United States as a decorated hero. After retiring from the Navy with the rank of captain, McCain first ran for elected office in 1982, representing Phoenix in the House of Representatives. After winning reelection to the House in 1984, McCain was elected to the Senate in 1986, taking the seat being vacated by Barry Goldwater.

During McCain's political rise, he had been supported by and become good friends with Charles Keating, a rich and successful investment banker who had cashed in on the federal deregulation of savings and loan banks. The two were close enough to take family vacations together, but that all came to an end when Keating tried to convince McCain and four other senators to support his company exemption from a federal examination of investment practices. Keating was eventually charged with fraud, having made too many risky investments from his company's savings and loan funds. When Keating's company went bankrupt, the federal government was forced to pay out more than $3 billion to defrauded customers. The “Keating Five” became the focus of a Senate ethics investigation, and McCain, the only Republican among the five, was largely found innocent of any intentional wrongdoing save “poor judgment.” But McCain's pride was damaged in the scandal; he could not bear having besmirched his otherwise outstanding reputation.

McCain bounced back by cosponsoring campaign finance reform, which he said he hoped would dilute the power of money in politics. Admitting that he too was tainted, McCain portrayed himself as the honest politician inevitably soiled by a corrupt system. McCain also had the epithet “maverick” applied to him [Page 424]for his willingness to break with his own party on many major issues, like campaign finance reform and torture of political prisoners.

When McCain ran for president in 2000, his character looked outstanding, but McCain's “Straight Talk Express” could reveal his ugly side, too. McCain referred to his Vietcong captors as “gooks,” backpedaling only to insist that the slur did not refer generally to the Vietnamese people. After some big primary wins against George W. Bush, McCain lost a crucial South Carolina primary that was saturated with allegations of dirty politicking. McCain reacted by giving a major address in Virginia lashing out at leaders of the religious right like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Alienating an already dubious right wing, McCain went down to defeat.

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