Quién es John Sidney McCain

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and a candidate for the Republican Party nomination in the 2008 presidential election.

Both McCain's grandfather and father were Admirals in the United States Navy. McCain also attended the United States Naval Academy and graduated in 1958. McCain became a naval aviator flying attack aircraft from carriers. Participating in the Vietnam War, he narrowly escaped death during the 1967 Forrestal fire. On his twenty-third bombing mission over North Vietnam later in 1967, he was shot down and badly injured. He endured five and a half years as a prisoner of war, including periods of torture, before he was released following the Paris Peace Accords in 1973.

Retiring from the Navy in 1981 and moving to Arizona, McCain soon entered politics. In 1982 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona's 1st congressional district. After serving two terms there, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Arizona in 1986. He was re-elected Senator in 1992, 1998, and 2004. While generally adhering to American conservatism, McCain established a reputation as a political maverick for his willingness to defy Republican orthodoxy on several issues. Surviving the Keating Five scandal of the 1980s, he made campaign finance reform one of his signature concerns, which eventually led to the passing of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002.

McCain was a candidate for the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential election, but was defeated by George W. Bush after closely contested battles in several early primary states. In the 2008 presidential election, he was the Republican front-runner as the cycle began, but suffered a near collapse of his campaign in mid-2007 due to financial issues and his support for comprehensive immigration reform. In late 2007 he staged a comeback, won several key primaries during January 2008, and by the end of that month was the Republican front-runner once again, a status solidified by his Super Tuesday gains in early February and the subsequent withdrawal of his closest competitor, Mitt Romney.