John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona, having served since 1987. He first became a national celebrity after being held as a prisoner of war for five and a half years in Vietnam. He was a presidential candidate in the 2000 elections, but was defeated in the Republican primary by Bush. He has expressed interest in seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. McCain has simultaneously aroused intense support and notoriety as well as intense opposition to an extent quite unusual for a politician. McCain has often infuriated Republicans by opposing conservative policies.
McCain was born in Coco Solo in the American Panama Canal Zone. He attended Episcopal High School and graduated in 1954. That fall, McCain, like his father and grandfather, entered the United States Naval Academy. One of the “25 Most Influential People in America”. His best-selling family memoir, Faith of My Fathers (1999), helped propel his presidential run. McCain skipped the Iowa caucus, focusing instead on the New Hampshire primary. In visits to towns he gave a ten minute talk (focused on campaign reform issues), then announced that he would stay until he answered every question that everyone had. He made over 200 stops, talking in every town in New Hampshire in an example of “retail politics” that overcame Bush’s famous name. He won by a 60-40 landslide, and suddenly was the celebrity of the hour. Analysts predicted that a McCain victory in the South Carolina primary would give him unstoppable momentum.
Many current polls have Senator McCain as one of the leading candidates in the 2008 Republican primary, but McCain has not given a definitive answer as to whether or not he will pursue the nomination in 2008 as a Republican. In the June 2005 edition of Men’s Journal magazine, McCain said that he “absolutely” would like to be the President of the United States, but has not yet decided whether or not he will run again in 2008. He indicated that he would probably not make a firm decision until 2007 about another run at the White House, citing family and Senate responsibilities. On an episode of the television show the view, aired November 8, 2005, McCain remarked he would only make a decision after the 2006 mid-term elections.
McCain told Russert in reply to his question of the Arizona Republican running for the presidency in 2008 that he planned on sitting down with his family over the holiday and asking them whether he should run for president. He admitted to Russert that he was conducting exploratory examination of his chances of winning - and gathering the backing of the GOP.
Via :AXcess
