Word: wars
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...politician's first campaign has a way of shaping him forever, then you can trace the patterns of his current New Hampshire ground war back to 1982 and the newly poured asphalt of Arizona's rapidly growing First District. Arizona may have been new to McCain, but he was not new to the state. In 1980 he had married Cindy Hensley, 18 years his junior and the daughter of one of the largest beer distributors in the country. "His history as a POW preceded him out here," she admits, "because my father was so proud of him." McCain went...
From the start, McCain was attacked as an opportunist and a carpetbagger. His high-priced Washington consultants, big war chest and television ads did nothing to alter that image. At a debate with his three Republican primary opponents, he took aim at the issue and killed it dead. "Listen, pal," he replied to a challenge to his status as an Arizonan. "I spent 22 years in the Navy. My father was in the Navy. My grandfather was in the Navy. We in the military service tend to move a lot. I wish I could have had the luxury, like...
...War is hell, and politics can be too when you treat it like one. Home-state politicians complain that as he rose to power, McCain worked to turn the Arizona Republican Party into his personal fleet, tacking to his orders and subject to his discipline. Anyone who stepped out of line would find McCain out recruiting primary challengers, even down to the city-council races. "You are either with him," says a local politician who supports McCain, "or you're wearing the black hat." Says his former administrative assistant Grant Woods, with whom relations have gone sour: "As a maverick...
...McCain began to search for a broader mission. "In the Senate you have greater freedom," recalls former administrative assistant Chris Koch. "It's not that he had a specific agenda of A, B, C. He just wanted to get out of being perceived as just a Navy guy and war hero who is good on national security." And soon enough he had a chance to fight for a cause closer to his constituents' hearts--when he resisted a rise in Medicare premiums. It was his greatest political victory to date--and, as it happened, the next day brought the worst...
...that in the end he got a slap on the wrist for showing "poor judgment." Nearly half the voters in his home state said they thought he should resign. The scandal was so damaging that it all but erased the Story. Now McCain's homeric epithet was no longer War Hero. It was Member of the Keating Five, as though his medals had been publicly stripped from his chest...