[24][31] Stationed in the Gulf of Tonkin, McCain and his fellow pilots became frustrated by micromanagement from Washington; he later wrote, "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.

[70] As vice president of public relations at the distributorship, he gained political support among the local business community, meeting powerful figures such as banker Charles Keating Jr., real estate developer Fife Symington III (later Governor of Arizona) and newspaper publisher Darrow "Duke" Tully.

[70] McCain responded to a voter making that charge with what a Phoenix Gazette columnist later described as "the most devastating response to a potentially troublesome political issue I've ever heard":[70] Listen, pal.

Also that year, he opposed creation of a federal Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but admitted in 2008: "I was wrong and eventually realized that, in time to give full support [in 1990] for a state holiday in Arizona.

[85] McCain opposed keeping U.S. Marines deployed in Lebanon, citing unattainable objectives, and subsequently criticized President Reagan for pulling out the troops too late; in the interim, the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing killed hundreds.

[106][108][109] In his 1992 re-election bid, the Keating Five affair was not a major issue,[110] and he won handily, gaining 56 percent of the vote to defeat Democratic community and civil rights activist Claire Sargent and independent former governor, Evan Mecham.

[121] The efforts of McCain and Feingold were opposed by some of the moneyed interests targeted, by incumbents in both parties, by those who felt spending limits impinged on free political speech and might be unconstitutional as well, and by those who wanted to counterbalance the power of what they saw as media bias.

[132] In March 1999, McCain voted to approve the NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, saying that the ongoing genocide of the Kosovo War must be stopped and criticizing past Clinton administration inaction.

"[140] McCain announced his candidacy for president on September 27, 1999, in Nashua, New Hampshire, 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".

[175][176] In October 2003, McCain and Lieberman co-sponsored the Climate Stewardship Act that would have introduced a cap and trade system aimed at returning greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels; the bill was defeated with 55 votes to 43 in the Senate.

[164] 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 Arizona senator subsequently resumed his familiar position as a political underdog,[213] riding the Straight Talk Express and taking advantage of free media such as debates and sponsored events.

[215] McCain was showing a resurgence, in particular with renewed strength in New Hampshire—the scene of his 2000 triumph—and was bolstered further by the endorsements from The Boston Globe, the New Hampshire Union Leader, and almost two dozen other state newspapers,[216] as well as from Senator Lieberman (now an Independent Democrat).

McCain's comeback plan paid off when he won the New Hampshire primary on January 8, defeating former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney in a close contest, to once again become one of the front-runners in the race.

"[255] Although McCain later expressed regret for not choosing the independent Senator Joe Lieberman (who had previously been Al Gore's running mate in 2000, while still elected as a Democrat) as his VP candidate instead, he consistently defended Palin's performances at his events.

"[271] McCain's response was considered one of the finer moments of the campaign and was still being viewed several years later as a marker for civility in American politics, particularly in light of the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant animus of the Donald Trump presidency.

[274] The election took place on November 4, and Barack Obama was declared the projected winner at about 11:00 pm Eastern Standard Time; McCain delivered his concession speech in Phoenix, Arizona, about twenty minutes later.

"[293] The primary challenge coincided with McCain reversing or muting his stance on some issues such as the bank bailouts, closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, campaign finance restrictions, and gays in the military.

As the Arab Spring took center stage, McCain urged that the embattled Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, step down and thought the U.S. should push for democratic reforms in the region despite the associated risks of religious extremists gaining power.

[302] In June, he joined with Senator Kerry in offering a resolution that would have authorized the military intervention, and said: "The administration's disregard for the elected representatives of the American people on this matter has been troubling and counterproductive.

[306][307] In the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries, McCain endorsed former 2008 rival Mitt Romney and campaigned for him, but compared the contest to a Greek tragedy due to its drawn-out nature with massive super PAC-funded attack ads damaging all the contenders.

[310] He became one of the most vocal critics of the Obama administration's handling of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, saying it was a "debacle" that featured either "a massive cover-up or incompetence that is not acceptable" and that it was worse than the Watergate scandal.

He staged a visit to rebel forces inside Syria in May 2013, the first senator to do so, and called for arming the Free Syrian Army with heavy weapons and for the establishment of a no-fly zone over the country.

[315] McCain took the lead in criticizing a growing non-interventionist movement within the Republican Party, exemplified by his March 2013 comment that Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and Representative Justin Amash were "wacko birds".

[331] Unlike many Republicans, McCain supported the release and contents of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture in December 2014, saying "The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow.

[346] McCain stated that Trump's "demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults" made it "impossible to continue to offer even conditional support" and added that he would not vote for Hillary Clinton, but would instead "write in the name of some good conservative Republican who is qualified to be president.

[354] McCain chaired the January 5, 2017, hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee where Republican and Democratic senators and intelligence officers, including James R. Clapper Jr., the Director of National Intelligence, Michael S. Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency and United States Cyber Command presented a "united front" that "forcefully reaffirmed the conclusion that the Russian government used hacking and leaks to try to influence the presidential election.

[386][387][388] Dignitaries who gave eulogies at the Memorial Service in Washington National Cathedral included Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Joe Lieberman, and his daughter Meghan McCain.

[447] One psychoanalytic comparison suggested that McCain was not the first presidential candidate to have a temper,[448] and cultural critic Julia Keller argued that voters want leaders who are passionate, engaged, fiery, and feisty.

[475] In the spring of 2018 McCain was decorated with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese Emperor for 'strengthening bilateral relations and promoting friendship between Japan and the United States'.