The navy ran in his blood. Born in the Panama canal zone to a family in which both father and grandfather were four-star admirals, John McCain lived a life of unswerving devotion to country with more than a bit of the aviator’s swagger, channeled into the rhythms of public service yet often erupting with the zeal of a reformer, even at times an iconoclast.



His life was forever marked by a mission over Hanoi on 26 October 1967. A missile hit his plane and McCain parachuted out, one leg and both arms broken. When the North Vietnamese realised his father commanded all US forces in the Pacific, he received intense pressure to accept early release. He refused and was beaten and tortured for his defiance and feistiness, qualities that helped him survive. Yet he forgave and led the effort to restore US relations with “most incredibly friendly” Vietnam, visiting numerous times.

After the war, a tour as the navy’s liaison to the Senate gave him a taste for the arts of legislation. Like generations of Americans seeking a new life, he chose the west – Arizona, the home of his new wife Cindy – and plunged into local politics.

He always held a strong interest in Native Americans, an example of his concern for those who have few other advocates. He worked on the PoW/MIA issue and became chairman of the Senate armed services committee (a hearing when things were going poorly on the battlefield rightly sparked sparks). In 2004 his public loss of confidence in Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, signalled Iraq was not going well. He suggested a commission to investigate the September 11 attacks, reforming the intelligence system. His proposal for a “surge” in Iraq, implemented in 2007, produced dramatic results in the field.

In fall 1967, John McCain is administered to at a Hanoi, Vietnam hospital as a prisoner of war. Photograph: AP

For many years, McCain served as chairman of the International Republican Institute, working to build political parties and democracies. He pushed this vision throughout his career, most recently advocating for the Syrian people and visiting Ukraine in December 2013 to support pro-democracy protests. He held a firm view of what it means to be, and to have, an ally. McCain’s idea for a “League of Democracies” was a practical reflection of his belief that “our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom, knowledge and resources necessary to succeed”.

At home, his reputation as a “maverick” is not quite right, because his deviations from whatever party orthodoxy was then prevalent were based on deeper principles and the Republican past rather than quirks. Still, the catalogue of issues on which he struck an independent line is impressive: tobacco regulation, climate change, guns, comprehensive immigration reform, judicial nominations, the 2003 Bush tax cuts and – fiercely – his opposition to waterboarding and torture. He fought against wasteful government spending so much that he pretended to sell “John McCain’s pork knives” on Saturday Night Live.

This, and an early encounter with the temptations of money and influence in politics, led to McCain’s passionate conviction that the system of campaign finance must be reformed to preserve democracy. The formal title of the his bill was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act; all Americans should work to change the corrupting influence of money in politics.

McCain, with his wife Cindy in Arizona, withdraws from the 2000 campaign. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

He ran for president twice, first in 2000 declaring that his was “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” – rhetoric from others but passionately held views from one who believed that “I owe America more than she has ever owed me”.

McCain may have been “next in line” in 2008, but it was not automatic. In a complex, multi-candidate race, he faced hard-fought primaries. Campaign debt and fundraising shortfalls? Fine, he’d carry his own bag. Watching him closely in South Carolina, he seemed to relish being in a must-win situation, speaking with passion but not losing his smile on the stump or letting the do-or-die, chips-are-down nature of the primary affect his own cool. Take the risk, keep the humor and do what it takes, consistent with honor. Don’t be bothered by the sniping from the right. Even take in a movie just before the primary, for a welcome break. And a bit of luck – in the form of Fred Thompson’s short-lived candidacy – didn’t hurt. He believed in luck.

2008 was never going to be a Republican year – McCain faced an unpopular incumbent and a financial crisis as well as history – but he led in the polls for more than a moment, rolling the dice with his bold selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate yet honorably resisting calls to attack Barack Obama personally. Straight talk to the end but accepting defeat as another chance for service.

Obama and McCain greet each other at their third and final presidential debate in Hempstead, New York in October 2008. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

If Al Smith, the first Catholic nominated for president, is known as the “happy warrior” of American politics, perhaps John McCain is best remembered simply as the “warrior”. Not in the sense of unbridled militarism – far from it – but rather as embodying the best traits of the martial spirit in a democracy. Duty. Valor. Patriotism. Integrity. Loyalty to a cause higher than self. Concern for the weak and for those who, in Lincoln’s words, “have borne the battle”. To get the full measure of the man and honor his memory, view the video of McCain in 2008 at the New York dinner named for the happy warrior, skewering his opponent with grace and good humor and putting the best face on an uphill campaign.

American politics could use a bit of John McCain’s laughter – and a strong draught of his principled courage.