Yet she is no resistance figure. She spends much of her time on “The View” battling Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, two co-hosts who offer spirited defenses of Democratic policies.

“Meghan is someone who has extremely strong beliefs about life and politics,” Ms. Behar wrote in an email on Sunday, as the McCain family and other mourners gathered in Annapolis, Md., for Mr. McCain’s burial. “She will argue you under the table but has great respect for you when you give it right back to her.”

She added that there was only one topic that made Ms. McCain blush: “Bring up the subject of sex, on TV. I guess she worries about what her grandmother will think.”

For Ms. McCain, televised debate on “The View” is akin to what her father did on the Senate floor.

“I know what defined him,” Ms. McCain said of her father during her eulogy. “I got to see it every single day of my blessed life.”

The senator’s beliefs in the ideals she outlined — toughness, love, bipartisanship and respect for a bygone “stoic silence that was once the mark of an American man” — have ultimately defined his daughter, former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a man Ms. McCain recently called a surrogate “uncle” on Instagram, wrote in an email.

“As proud as she was of him, he was even prouder of her,” Mr. Lieberman said. “Meghan is likely to embody John’s spirit on matters of public policy and good government in ways in which John did during his public life.”

Ms. McCain was at her father’s side, learning from his brand of Republican politics and idolizing him, from her earliest days: When she was two weeks old, she noted on Instagram recently, Mr. McCain held her in the crook of his arm as he visited a polling station. As Ms. McCain grew up, her mother would refer to her as “John McCain in a dress.” And when she married Ben Domenech, a founder of the conservative website The Federalist, last year, the menu included wild game and apple pie — her father’s favorite foods.