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David Foster Wallace had a similar reaction to McCain when he covered him in the 2000 election [1].

[1] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/davi...

This might be a dumb question but how does a prisoner refuse to leave? Can't they just kick him out?

He was given the option to “skip the line” since his dad was an admiral. I think the way it worked is the POW who had been there longest would be first to leave when there was an exchange opportunity. McCain saw it as unfair for him to take someone else’s spot just because of who his dad was.

It is also against the military code of conduct to accept parole or favors from the enemy. [0]

[0]: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/readings/code_of_conduct...

I think this is one of the circumstances where if he took the opportunity, it wouldn't be consider favoritism but rather of a strategic necessity considering how John Mccain's admiral father's decision making could be compromised by any risks such decisions could have towards his son's welfare.

Of course there are way more variable involved, but I think his refusal was mostly on the basis of maintaining solidarity with the other POWs. In that situation, I could imagine that one of the few things that would keep me going was knowing that the thing i was fighting for back home wasn't just a delusion.

If the other POWs saw Mccain released for on political reasons, then who is to say that the POWs loyalty to their nation wouldn't have been compromised?

I maintain this was a major reason for Bush defeating Kerry. I saw news stories on both of them one night and they were both in jeans. Kerry looked like they were purchased so he could dress down as the people do. The jeans looked like they had never been worn, maybe a dress shirt tucked in. Bush on the other hand was at Camp David casually talking to the press outdoors while his dog happily circled him.

It's not really how we should be deciding the presidency, but Kerry put off a strong vibe that he's not one of "us". The democrats need to embrace the actual people in their popularity.

This is a genuine question, I'm not leading here. Do you think this has to do with anti-intellectualism, jealousy or is there more at play here? I wouldn't want an average joe to run the country, I want someone truly extraordinary. Better suited to the role, more experienced, smarter, better dressed and showing it. I don't want the stereotypical truck stop waiter/waitress, you know? It's not fair as they may be just as qualified of course. What is so wrong with being an 'elite' in the political sphere?

How do you think an average middle-of-the-road person would feel if an 'average joe' was promoted to be their boss? I'd guess probably not great...

I think its about trust. We believe like individuals will have aligned interests. Elites will serve elites but regular Joe knows what its like for us. 9/10 times the Joe becomes elite and serves himself...

The reason politicians try to dress down is that they want to give off the impression that they can relate to the experiences of most Americans. The general idea being, "How could this person ever promote policy that benefits me, if they don't understand what it's like to be me?"

The irony is that most successful people in the world were rarely ever born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Kerry was actually one of those few candidates that I wished got their shot because his war record wasn't anything less but admirable. John Mccain's war record was far and beyond even his considering his many years being a POW.

They sacrificed so much for this country and yet the people only resonate with the candidates that seem hip nowadays.

Those candidates were more “hip” to older demographics because those people actually lived through those wars and knew what it meant to serve in those wars.

Its not about running the country, there are smarter people in his cabinet that will do that. It's about being an average person and recognizing the problems that the average person goes through, and hopefully solve those problems, not the ones that the elites have.

" ordinary Americans also refused to defer to those possessing, as Tocqueville put it, superior talent and intelligence and these natural elites could not enjoy much share in political power as a result."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_de_Tocqueville#On_major...

Better suited to the role, more experienced,

The experiences of the elites are typically very different from that of the Average Joe. As such, they are frequently wholly unqualified to understand the needs of the people.

The people want someone capable of relating to them at least a little.

> I want someone truly extraordinary. Better suited to the role, more experienced, smarter, better dressed and showing it.

I think someone who’s truly extraordinary shouldn’t have to try very hard to look “relatable”. JFK comes to mind immediately— he didn’t dress or act like a man of the people, but you still got the sense that his family life was like what your family life would be like if you had a lot more money.

Kerry in jeans simply felt inauthentic. Nobody had any idea what his life was actually like behind closed doors.

I think it's simpler - we just want to know that whoever leads understands our perspective. Being relatable is a very strong (and yes, fakeable) signal.

I appreciate the honesty of your question. I think you probably miss a lot of nuance about what it's like to be a middle-of-the-road person. As someone from a lower middle class background and being of mixed race I can probably give you a few hundred answers for what's wrong with being 'elite' in the political sphere, but I'll leave at this to think about: Which political party has painted itself into a corner of perceived 'elitism' the last election cycle?

The 'elites' underestimate the middle-of-the-road at their political peril.

I think Democrats desperately need to admit that charisma is a necessary qualification for a presidential candidate. An un-charismatic candidate is likely going to lose the election, and even if they do win, they will also probably be an ineffective president. A president not only needs to choose the right policies, they need to convince people to go along with them too.

I’m a dyed in the wool liberal who voted for obama every chance I got, but it was a positive vote for obama, not a vote against McCain or really even Romney who both seemed like decent people who happened to support policies I disagree with.

Unlike 2016 which was a complete horror show all around.

I always felt that this country would have been in such a better position if McCain had beaten Bush in the 2000 Republican primary. When he ran in 2000, I felt McCain was extremely principled, even if I didn't agree with some of those principles. He even had a little momentum until the smear campaign in South Carolina, but once that happened, it derailed his campaign. When he ran again in 2008, it felt like he compromised on some of his principles because he felt he needed to "play the game" to have a chance of winning.

Given how much of a disaster Bush's 8 years were (and we shouldn't let the colossal disaster we're currently experiencing shift our perception of those years), it's a real shame that McCain didn't get his chance then instead of Bush.

It's interesting hearing stories like this. One thing to remember is that for the same time you got to experience his presence while shaking hands, you were also a part of his life experience too. It sounds like you certainly remember him, but he likely remembered those experiences too (as is the case with other celebrities thought as "too important to care about those moments").

> I got to live in Iowa in the summer of 2007 [...] One bonus of that was getting to go to all the rallies.

Unrelated to Mr McCain, but living in California during the Clinton/Trump election, this struck me as extremely odd.

With California being essentially pre-decided due to the majority vote system, I saw zero campaign ads. Except for the news papers, the election simply didn't happen in California. What a weird system, where huge parts of the population get no representation.

McCain might have beaten Hillary, but when Obama locked up the drawn out Democratic nomination, the race was over for the reasons you described.

Also making the ridiculous decision (which says a lot about his judgement) to run with Sarah Palin as his VP.

Interestingly, when you look at the last election, maybe he was just ahead of his time

This is complete conjecture, so grain of salt and all that, but I'm not so sure it says what you think it does about his judgement. He had run before. Honest campaigns, little to no mud slinging, not what you typically see from politicians. He lost.

He gave in to the RNC advisors and others around him that time around. Palin obviously turned out to be awful (maybe not strong enough a word) and he didn't care for her very much either, but I imagine he just wanted to get into office so that he could institute what he felt were good policies.

I think he was fundamentally a good person and would have been a good leader, though of course we can debate the merits of his policies. Everything being equal, I'll vote for the person I believe has the interests of the populace at heart.

I remember reading that McCain picked Palin over his handlers’ strong objections. Was it the other way around?

As far as I'm aware, he wanted Lieberman and caved to more conservative members of his party. Wikipedia seems to agree[1]. It does also say that he selected Palin because she appeared to be someone who would bolster his "maverick" image. He later regretted the choice.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_presidential_candidacy_of...

A McCain/Lieberman ticket would have been a dream.

For Obama. A Jewish candidate would have been like Al Smith in 1932. Good luck turning out the base.

Not to mention two old white guys going up against the first black nominee. The fact that Palin was a women likely bolstered the arguments to choose her a great deal.

Obama won in a post 9/11 America while being black and having Hussein as his middle name I don’t think a Jewish VP would’ve been harder to sell even to the Republican base.

There’s a few stories out there. The common thread is that the vetting process wasn’t done and nobody realized what a shitshow Palin was.

Whomever made the decision, it was a rash move that proved that a low caliber, not so smart, but media savvy national candidate could win the support needed to be president. It led to 2016.

His campaign manager picked palin, and later admitted it was a mistake. https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.slate.com/news-and-politics...

Having a gun toting female vp on the republican ticket would have been a strategic move had she not been such a dumpster fire, so I see where he was going with it. Unfortunately for America it propelled her into the national spotlight and we were subjected to her idiotic rambling for years.

"Not so smart guy" that somehow reached the peak of 3 major fields, including one where he was grossly outgunned and outfunded. "Low calibre" that's somehow supercharging our economy.

I remember reading an AskReddit thread about "have you ever met Trump, what was he like?", it was nothing but amazing stories about his incredible gifts of memory, his intelligence, and his generosity. This of course was back when Trump was still a Democrat. After becoming a Republican he's suddenly a bumbling senile fool who just stumbled into the Presidency over someone who raised 3x the money and had all the establishment support. An amazing example of the Dunning Kruger effect.

> "Low calibre" that's somehow supercharging our economy.

You might want to take a look at what ”cum hoc ergo propter hoc” means.

> An amazing example of the Dunning Kruger effect.

That’s... not how the Dunning Kruger effect works.

At this point, everyone wants to claim someone else made that decision.

McCain presidential run is a perfect display of one of the weaknesses of the primary system. To win as Republican in the primary you have to appeal to the worse stereotypes of the Republican Party - racist, nationalist, “Christian right” etc. Neither McCain nor Romney ever governed to the far right but they had to pretend like they were to appeal to primary voters.

I’m in no way giving Democrats a pass, they have to appeal to the “tax the rich”, we can give everything to everyone and they stay in the mushy middle not really standing for anything.

I'm not really sure that's a weakness. Sure, you can point to the things that are used which are harmful or hateful, but this is how a party decides it's policy. The idea is that the platform you pick informs the government you create, yes? Sure, you can argue about whether it's "listening" or "pandering," but the whole foundation of representative government is that the officials elected represent the policies the population wants. Then when they're in office, they're forced to compromise with members of other parties representing other peoples. The fact that immutable obstructionism is the political tactic of the day doesn't mean that the core idea is bad.

"People are idiots" is a known fault with democracies, but it's a known fault with all governments or, indeed, all human endeavors.

Not really, Reagan, and the Bushes may have paid lip service to the “moral majority” but they never governed that way. Every modern Republican president supported sensible immigration for instance.

I know it seems like I’m giving Democrats a pass, but living in a southern state, I don’t see Democrats veer to far to the left on the state level. They can’t and still have any chance.

Nothing ridiculous about it. He could see where the wind was blowing. 50+ million ppl voted for Trump.

Who do you think is going to get that vote bank post Trump?

Someone even more ridiculous unless a better McCain-Palin type arrangement happens.

We are just one Wall Street/Silicon Valley/Pentagon created fiasco away from Alex Jones being president given the current "us VS them" narratives 24*7 news, social media keep amplifying.

>Someone even more ridiculous unless a better McCain-Palin type arrangement happens.

We basically got that relationship with Trump/Pence, just flip the ticket and replace War with Religion.

McCain recounts fighting with his campaign staff over his first pick, the Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who had been Al Gore's running mate in 2000. Relenting, McCain looks around as the Republican convention in St. Paul, Minn., looms. Desperate for a way to reframe the election, McCain goes with the upstart, populist governor of Alaska.
"She was a popular, energetic and accomplished reformer as mayor, governor and as a campaigner," McCain writes. He also thought she would appeal to Democrats who had preferred Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama in that year's primaries. McCain notes her knockout speech at the party convention, but he admits it was downhill thereafter.

"She stumbled in some interviews," McCain relates, "and had a few misjudgments in the glare of the ceaseless spotlight. Those missteps too are on me. She didn't put herself on the ticket. I did."

https://www.npr.org/2018/05/03/607403619/exclusive-audio-in-...

Honestly, I don't think she was a bad choice. I know this sounds ridiculous in hindsight.

At the time, she was one of the most popular governors in the US. She was young (44), female and in charge of the largest state in the country by landmass. She was a rising star in the Republican party and on the short list for the next opening for the US Senate.

She was also a Westerner like McCain, at a time where the Republican party wanted to make sure it didn't become the party of just the Southern US and voters were sick and tired of the Bush administration and the career Republicans running the place.

McCain was losing, and losing momentum. People were scared, companies were going bankrupt, and the stock market crash was imminent.

His top choice was Lieberman, but he couldn't choose him. Republicans would hate to see one of the Senate's most senior Democrats (who was pro-choice) as VP. Many Democrats really disliked him too for his support for the Iraq War and opposition to Obama. He lost his primary seat in 2006 and ran as an Independent against the Democrat, basically winning by consolidating the Connecticut Republican vote.

The others on the short list were Governor Pawlenty (MN), Governor Jindal (LA), Governor Romney (MA) and Former Governor Ridge (PA). All governors. Pawlenty and Romney were the safe choices, but I don't think they would've been able to turn the tide and shift attention away from the Obama campaign.

I was a strong supporter of Obama, and I remember getting worried when McCain chose her. I was really disappointed to hear her first speech - it was patronizing and vindictive, but red meat to the Republican base. I think she basically was told what she needed to do -- i.e. serve as the attack dog and rile up the Republican base and fuel get out the vote efforts in those last two months. And she did a pretty good job at it. She did fine in the VP debate, though Biden did as well, and she looked very comfortable on the national stage.

I think the Democrats ran a great campaign, and were able to define her as a political neophyte that was unqualified to serve as President. I also think that McCain personally wanted to run an ethical campaign focusing on the issues, and her full embrace of the red meat partisan issues undermined his campaign. But if he had chosen someone else I don't think there would've been a different outcome. Republican strategists would still have come up with 'death panels' and trying to tie Obama to Bill Ayers and all that other conspiratorial nonsense, it just would've been a different politician saying it.