John McCain ran for U.S. president in the 2000 presidential election, but failed to gain the Republican Party nomination, losing to George W. Bush in a campaign that included a bitter battle during the South Carolina primary. He resumed his role representing Arizona in the U.S. Senate in 2001, and Bush won the election. Bush was President of the United States from 2001 to 2009. McCain won re-election to the Senate in 2004, 2010 and 2016.
First Bush term, 2001–2004
Peak maverick
Following the 2000 presidential election, there was a large amount of lingering bitterness between George W. Bush and McCain and between their respective staffs. McCain was also upset that the Bush administration hired few if any of his aides for White House positions; an unofficial Bush policy blocked McCain staffers from thousands of administration jobs.
McCain began 2001 by taking positions opposite that of the new administration on a number of matters. In January 2001 the latest iteration of McCain-Feingold was introduced into the Senate; it was opposed by Bush and most of McCain's fellow congressional Republicans, but helped by the 2000 election results, it passed the Senate in one form until procedural obstacles delayed it again. In these few months McCain also opposed Bush on an HMO reform bill, on climate change measures, and on gun legislation. Then in May 2001, McCain voted against the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, Bush's $350 billion in tax breaks over 11 years, which became known as "the Bush tax cuts". He was one of only two Republicans to do so, saying that "I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle class Americans who most need tax relief." One McCain associate later described McCain's stance during this time: "John did what he thought was right. If it happened to be something that ticked off Bush, so much the better." McCain used political capital gained from his presidential run, along with improved legislative skills, to become what The New York Times later termed "perhaps the [Senate]'s most influential member"; in doing so he built relationships with former Republican adversary Trent Lott and with high-profile Democrat Ted Kennedy.
When Republican Senator Jim Jeffords became an Independent, throwing control of the Senate to Democrats, McCain defended Jeffords against "self-appointed enforcers of party loyalty." Indeed, there was speculation at the time, and in years since, about McCain himself possibly leaving the Republican Party and becoming an Independent during the first half of 2001. Republicans then held the Senate by only one person; McCain was one of three possible defection targets, along with Jeffords and Lincoln Chafee. Accounts have differed as to who initiated any discussions, and McCain always adamantly denied, then and later, that he ever considered doing so. In any case, all of this was enough for conservative Arizonan critics of McCain to organize rallies and recalls against him in May and June 2001.
September 11 and afterwards During the September 11, 2001 attacks, McCain was in transit to, and at, his office in the U.S. Capitol.Drew, Citizen McCain, pp. 131–33. After being evacuated, he stayed at an associate's Capitol Hill residence and made 17 national and Arizona media appearances to comment upon the attacks. In the days after, he became one of the most visible leadership voices in the nation, saying: "If there's anything Americans should know about this, it's that it's going to be a long struggle ... Americans have gotten used to quick fixes. We haven't been in a long struggle since the Vietnam War."Drew, Citizen McCain, p. 138. McCain voted for the USA Patriot Act in October 2001. McCain became a supporter of Bush and an advocate for strong military measures against those responsible with respect to the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan; in a high-profile late October 2001 Wall Street Journal op-ed piece he wrote, "America is under attack by a depraved, malevolent force that opposes our every interest and hates every value we hold dear." After advocating an overwhelming, not incremental, approach against the Taliban in Afghanistan, including the use of ground forces, he concluded, "War is a miserable business. Let's get on with it." He and Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman wrote the legislation that created the 9/11 Commission, while he and Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings co-sponsored the Aviation and Transportation Security Act that federalized airport security under what became the Transportation Security Administration. On October 18, 2001, McCain stated on the Late Show with David Letterman that "There is some indication, and I don't have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may – and I emphasize may – have come from Iraq,"One Month After 9/11, McCain Said Anthrax 'May Have Come From Iraq,' Warned Iraq Is 'The Second Phase'", thinkprogress.org, August 1, 2008 more than a week before ABC's series of reports identifying the composition of the anthrax samples as uniquely Iraqi, a determination then and now generally considered to be erroneous.
McCain-Feingold had been yet further delayed by the effects of September 11. Finally in March 2002, aided by the aftereffects of the Enron scandal, it passed both House and Senate and, known formally as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, was signed into law by President Bush. Bush declined to stage a White House Rose Garden signing ceremony for it, not wanting to give McCain the public satisfaction. Nevertheless, seven years in the making, it was McCain's greatest legislative achievement and had become, in the words of one biographer, "one of the most famous pieces of federal legislation in modern American political history."Alexander (2002), p. 168.
Meanwhile, in discussions over proposed U.S. action against Iraq, McCain was a strong supporter of the Bush position, labeling Saddam Hussein "a megalomaniacal tyrant whose cruelty and offense to the norms of civilization are infamous." Unequivocally stating that Iraq had substantial weapons of mass destruction, McCain stated that Iraq was "a clear and present danger to the United States of America." Accordingly, he voted for the Iraq War Resolution in October 2002. Both before and immediately after the Iraq War started in March 2003, McCain agreed with the Bush administration's assertions that the U.S. forces would be treated as liberators by most of the Iraqi people.Hardball with Chris Matthews, MSNBC. March 12, 2003, transcript available.Washington Times: McCain turns Bush on Iraq war surge. August 21, 2008. In 2003, McCain protested the USAF award of a tanker contract to Boeing to lease aircraft to replace its aging fleet of aerial tankers.*
In the final quarter of 2002, McCain also proposed last minute language to amend the pending Federal anti-spam legislation that became known as the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. McCain's office tapped anti-spam expert and attorney Anne P. Mitchell to work with his office on the language of the amendment. The McCain Amendment, as it came to be known, was included in the version of CAN-SPAM which became Federal law on January 1, 2003.
In May 2003, McCain voted against the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, the second round of Bush tax cuts which served to extend and accelerate the first (which he had also voted against), saying it was unwise at a time of war. By November 2003, after a trip to Iraq, McCain was publicly questioning Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq War, saying that "All of the trends are in the wrong direction" and that more U.S. troops were needed to handle the deteriorating situation in the Sunni Triangle. By December 2004, McCain was bluntly announcing that he had lost confidence in Rumsfeld.
In October 2003 the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act failed a vote in the Senate by 55 votes to 43, but would have introduced a cap and trade system of greenhouse gases at the 2000 emissions level. In 2005 it was reintroduced under the altered moniker of the Climate Change Stewardship and Innovation Act, but again failed to gather enough support; Republicans opposed the Bill 49–6, while Democrats supported it 37–10. If passed, the acts would have capped 2010 CO2 emissions at the 2000 level. Residential and agricultural areas, as well as other areas deemed "not feasible", would be exempt. The bill would have also established a scholarship at the National Academy of Sciences for those studying climatology.
2004 elections In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, McCain was once again frequently mentioned for the vice-presidential slot, only this time as part of the Democratic ticket underneath nominee John Kerry. Kerry and McCain had been close since their work on the early 1990s Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, and the pairing was seen as having great allure to independent voters, with polls seeming to confirm the notion. McCain had seemed open such a possibility in a March 2004 interview, only to have his staff reject it hours later. In June 2004, it was reported that Kerry had informally offered the slot to McCain several times, but McCain had declined, either on grounds that it would be infeasible and weaken the presidency or that the vice-presidency held no appeal for him or that he thought Bush was a better president than Kerry would be. McCain's office formally denied that any vice-presidential offer had taken place. At the 2004 Republican National Convention, McCain enthusiastically supported Bush for re-election, praising Bush's management of the war on terror since the September 11 attacks. At the same time, McCain defended Kerry by labeling the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Kerry's Vietnam war record as "dishonest and dishonorable" and urging the Bush campaign to condemn it. By August 2004, McCain had the best favorable-to-unfavorable rating (55 percent to 19 percent) of any national politician. In the fall general election, McCain worked very hard for Bush; Bush campaign political director Terry Nelson later said, "[McCain] was our most important surrogate."
McCain was himself up for re-election as Senator in 2004. There was some talk of Representative Jeff Flake mounting a Republican primary challenge against McCain; Stephen Moore, president of the ideologically oriented Club for Growth (which attempts to defeat those it considers Republican in Name Only), led talk for the prospect, saying "Our members loathe John McCain." Flake decided not to do it, later saying "I would have been whipped." In the general election McCain had his biggest margin of victory yet, garnering 77 percent of the vote against little-known Democrat Stuart Starky, an eighth grade math teacher whom The Arizona Republic termed a "sacrificial lamb". Exit polls showed that McCain even won a majority of the votes cast by Democrats.
Following his 2000 presidential campaign, McCain made frequent appearances on entertainment programs on television and also in film, and even more so after 2004. He hosted the October 12, 2002, episode of Saturday Night Live, making him the third U.S. Senator after Paul Simon and George McGovern, to host the show.
Second Bush term, 2005–2008
Presence McCain was a regular guest on The Daily Show; as of 2006 he had been on that show eleven times, more than anyone else. McCain appeared in slightly edgy segments on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and also appeared several times on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and the Late Show with David Letterman.