McCain entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000 but lost a heated primary season contest to George W. He belonged to the bipartisan ' Gang of 14', which played a key role in alleviating a crisis over judicial nominations. McCain chaired the Senate Commerce Committee from 1997 to 20 to 2005, where he opposed pork barrel spending and earmarks. He was also known for his work in the 1990s to restore diplomatic relations with Vietnam. McCain was investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as one of the Keating Five he then made regulating the financing of political campaigns one of his signature concerns, which eventually resulted in passage of the McCain–Feingold Act in 2002. While generally adhering to conservative principles, McCain also gained a reputation as a 'maverick' for his willingness to break from his party on certain issues, including LGBT rights, gun regulations, and campaign finance reform where his stances were more moderate than those of the party's base. Four years later, he was elected to the United States Senate, where he served six terms. In 1982, McCain was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he served two terms. McCain retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and moved to Arizona. During the war, he sustained wounds that left him with lifelong physical disabilities. McCain experienced episodes of torture and refused an out-of-sequence early release. While on a bombing mission during Operation Rolling Thunder over Hanoi in October 1967, McCain was shot down, seriously injured, and captured by the North Vietnamese.

During the Vietnam War, he almost died in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire.

McCain became a naval aviator and flew ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958 and received a commission in the United States Navy. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election, which he lost to Barack Obama. John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018.

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