John McCain
John Sidney McCain III was born August 29, 1936 is the senior senator from Arizona, and a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2008 United States presidential election.
McCain attended the United States Naval Academy, graduating in 1958. Both McCain's grandfather and father were Admirals in the United States Navy. McCain became an aviator in the Navy, flying attack aircraft.
In 1967 he narrowly escaped death in the Vietnam War when, on his 23rd bombing mission over North Vietnam, he was shot down and suffered serious injuries. He was held prisoner of war for five and a half years, during which time he was tortured by the North Vietnamese, and finally released in 1973 following the Paris Peace Accords.
After retiring from the Navy in 1981, McCain moved to Arizona and soon entered politics. In 1982 he was elected to the US. House of Representatives from Arizona's 1st congressional district, where he served two terms. He then ran and was elected to the United States Senate in 1986, and was re-elected in 1992, 1998, and 2004. McCain is a bit of a maverick politically, having shown a willingness to defy Republican policy on several issues over his years as a lawmaker. McCain has made campaign finance reform one of his primary concerns, which led to the McCain-Feingold Act, passed in 2002.
Senator McCain ran for president 2000, but, after several hotly contested races in several early primary states, he was eventually beaten by George W. Bush. As of January 2008, McCain is once again a front runner in the Republican primaries, having survived a near collapse of his campaign in mid-2007 due to financial issues and his support for comprehensive immigration reform. He most recently won the New Hampshire primary on January 7th, 2008, and is campaigning hard in Michigan and South Carolina to communicate his message of the importance of victory over radical Islamic extremism, among other issues, including illegal aliens and the economy.
