In 2000, John McCain entered the contest for the Republican nomination for President, but he lost a heated primary season race to Governor George W. Bush of Texas. In 2008, John McCain secured the nomination to be the Republican presidential candidate, after coming back from early reversals.  However, in the presidential election, John McCain lost to the Democratic candidate Barack Obama, losing by a 365–173 electoral college margin. Following this election, John McCain became less of a maverick and tended to adopt more orthodox conservative positions and beliefs. For the most part, John McCain showed clear opposition to the actions of the Obama administration, especially with regard to foreign policy issues. By 2013, however, he had become a central player in the Senate for negotiating deals on key issues in an otherwise highly party-polarized environment. McCain became chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2008. In July 2017, John McCain was faced with a diagnosis of brain cancer. Ever since the cancer diagnosis, John McCain has played a diminished role in the Senate.

References

1.    "McCain Says His Brain Cancer Prognosis Is 'Very Poor'". Bloomberg News. Associated Press. September 25, 2017. Retrieved February 9, 2018.

2.    Timberg, Robert. Chapter One, John McCain, An American Odyssey in The New York Times on the Web. Retrieved August 4, 2015.

3.    Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Two-Ocean War: A Short History of the United States Navy in the Second World War(Naval Institute Press, 2007), p. 119.

4.    Roberts, Gary. "On the Ancestry, Royal Descent, and English and American Notable Kin of Senator John Sidney McCain IV", New England Historic Genealogical Society(April 1, 2008). Retrieved May 19, 2008.

5.   Nowicki, Dan and Muller, Bill. "John McCain Report: At the Naval Academy", The Arizona Republic (March 1, 2007); retrieved November 10, 2007; "How the biography was put together", The Arizona Republic (March 1, 2007). Retrieved June 18, 2008. ("McCain's grades [at the Naval Academy] were good in the subjects he enjoyed, such as literature and history. Gamboa said McCain would rather read a history book than do his math homework. He did just enough to pass the classes he didn't find stimulating. 'He stood low in his class,' Gamboa said. 'But that was by choice, not design.'")

6.    Alexander, Man of the People, p. 19.

7.   Woodward, Calvin. "McCain's WMD Is A Mouth That Won't Quit". Associated Press. USA Today (November 4, 2007). Retrieved November 10, 2007.

8.    Alexander, Man of the People, p. 22.