John Sidney McCain III
Senate Office Building
Washington , D.C.

OVERVIEW:
I'm a much older (72 in August), grumpier, meaner, and crankier George W. Bush. Think of me as a Cheney who's actually served in the military. Still don't get the picture? Then think of me as the crotchety old man in the Cowardly Dog cartoons. My solution to most problems? Bomb, bomb, bomb them. I took money from convicted criminal, Charles H. Keating, Jr., and I was one of the scandalous "Keating Five." It's true I was rebuked (that's what we Senators call a slap on the wrist) by the Senate Ethics Committee for this but unlike Keating I never served time in the slammer for it. Neither did my wife for her drug addiction. I've been a Washington , D.C. insider for the last 22 years serving as a Congressman and a Senator and took more campaign contributors from lobbyists than any other politician. I know that our country faces grave economic problems, people are losing their homes to bank foreclosures, the stock market is up and down like a yo-yo, unemployment numbers are way up, average workers' earnings are down and people have to work 2 jobs to make due. But I've said publicly: "I know a lot less about economics than military and foreign policy issues. …I still need to be educated." (McCain to Wall Street Journal, 2005) I've also said, "The issue of economics is not something that I understood as well as I should. I've got Greenspan's book." That's my kind of "straight talk" and the collaborationist media let's me get away with it because they don't understand economics either. They understand Britney Spears and booze.

I'm proud to have George W. Bush's blessings as a true conservative. I have such a mean streak and bad temper that a fellow Republican Senator ( Thad Cochran , Miss. ) told the Boston Globe that the thought of me being the President "sends a cold chill down my spine." Cochran also called me "erratic," "hotheaded" and "someone who loses his temper" and "worries me". I've been married twice; divorced; I've had extra marital affairs; my wife Cindy is a self-confessed drug addict; I've been reprimanded for my role in the "Keating Five Scandal" by the Senate Ethics Committee; reprimanded with more than 100 demerits a year while at the Naval Academy; crashed 4 or 5 jets while in the Navy; have a mean temper; but I'm still a "family values" man-especially when elections roll around. My Motto: More of the Same With John McCain

EDUCATION AND MILITARY EXPERIENCE: I'm almost 72 years old (DOB: August 29, 1936). I'll be 72 ½ years old in February, 2009, if I should become the President—by far the oldest man to ever be even considered for the office. As a child, I was known to have a quick temper and an aggressive attitude so much so that my nicknames in high school were "Punk" and "McCarty". Both my father and my grandpa were 4 star admirals so I went to the Naval Academy where-unlike them-I finished 5th from the bottom of my graduating class in 1958 (894th out of 899). I'm very proud of my record of misconduct at the Naval Academy : I was given over 100 demerits every year while there. A fellow midshipman accurately said of me, "being on liberty with John McCain was like being in a train wreck." (Real quotation). I was known as a sub par flier and had little patience to study flight manuals. During a practice run in Texas , I crashed my multimillion dollar aircraft into Corpus Christi Bay but escaped serious injury. I had another close call later when my jet scrapped some power lines because I was flying too low in Spain . I had another close call with death in the fall of 1965 when another one of my planes crashed over Norfolk , Virginia , but I bailed out. The nice thing about the military, especially with the budgets I've been getting passed, is you always get a newer, more expensive model to crash the next time. I'm proud of having crashed 4 fighter jets at great financial cost to the U.S. Treasury and the taxpayers of America . But I'm still a proud Reagan Republican and oppose needless spending. After yet another crash and rocket accident occurred involving my plane on the USS Forrestal killed 132 sailors and injured 62 others and destroyed at least 20 aircraft worth hundred of millions of dollars. After this, I told the New York Times: "But now what I've seen what the bombs and the napalm did to the people on our ship, I'm not so sure that I want to drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam ." (Actual quotation). But I found the courage to continue dropping napalm on the men, women and children of Vietnam . I also had the courage to call them "gooks." Gooks don't vote—how's that for straight talk? I was shot down over Vietnam in October, 1967 after having flown 23 bombing missions. I supported completely Richard Nixon's handling of the Vietnam War. In fact, I completely supported Richard Nixon as President. At a time in 1977 when I was jobless and thinking of being a politician in Florida , I became the Navy's liaison to the U.S. Senate. It helped that my daddy was a 4 star Admiral as was my grandpa.

PERSONAL: After I was commissioned an Ensign, I earned a reputation as a party animal and dated an exotic dancer named "Marie the Flame of Florida." On July 3, 1965 I married a model, Carol Shepp, who came from Philadelphia . I'm sorry to say that my marriage began to falter. I have written, "My marriage's collapse was attributable to my own selfishness and immaturity…." (Actual quotation). I filed for divorce from Carol on April 2, 1980. Carol attributed our breakup to "John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again…." (Actual quotation). I married for the second time on May 17, 1980: my new bride was Cindy Lou Hinsley—17 years younger than me- whose daddy was a wealthy Anheuser-Busch distributor in Arizona . My wife Cindy is a self-confessed and sentenced drug addict. She also stole drugs from her non profit charity, the American Voluntary Medical Team, and has been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Cindy never served any time for her drug addiction (like me with the Keating scandal). Because she was married to me, a U.S. Senator, and because she was wealthy and had connections, she "entered a diversion program"; defense lawyers said if she had been poor, she likely would have been locked up. No matter that I'm always complaining about judges being too liberal; I don't want a hard-ass judge when it comes to sentencing my wife, do I? Despite my having been implicated in scandals and being divorced, I'm big on "family values". That slogan really helped me get elected. Gary Hart, the future contender for the Democratic Presidency, was my groomsman. My children by my former marriage were upset and did not attend the wedding. I'm proud that a 2006 Washingtonian survey of Capitol Hill staff ranked me as having the 2nd "Hottest Temper" in the Senate. Rest assured, I'm shooting for # 1. I accurately said that "I'm older than dirt and have more scars than Frankenstein." (Actual quotation). POLITICAL CAREER:

Having crashed all those navy jets, I went to work for my new father-in-law's beer dealership in Arizona . One of my buddies was Charles H. Keating, Jr. (who later bankrupted lots of savings and loan institutions and was put in prison for fraud and racketeering). Keating gave me piles of money and helped my political rise. With the help of a $167,000 loan from my wife, and the support of special interest groups including the powerful Phoenix 40 (all the big shots in that city) I outspent my opponents to win a Congressional seat from Arizona even though I had spent zero time there prior to my marriage. My opponents had called me a carpetbagger. In 1986, I ran for Barry Goldwater's senatorial seat after he retired. I won despite my friendship with Duke Tully, a powerful newspaper publisher who made up his own heroic war record and despite my father-in-law's brushes with the law (he was convicted of filing false liquor records and conspiracy in the illegal distribution of liquor) and despite my role with Charles Keating Jr. and his fraudulent savings and loan practices. I was Chairman of Veterans for George H. W. Bush in 1988. I courageously supported the hard-drinking and womanizing Senator Tower of Texas in his doomed attempt to be U.S. Secretary of Defense in 1989.What's wrong with having an alcoholic as our Defense Secretary? "Family values" has to be overlooked for realities sometimes; that's part of the "vision thing" that my pal George W. Bush had down so well. I boldly criticized Paul Weyrich, Founder of the Moral Majority in 1989, who opposed John Tower 's nomination as Defense Secretary, for being a "pompous, self-serving son of a bitch." (Actual quotation). From 1982-1987, I received over $112,000 in political contributions from Charles Keating, Jr., whose savings and loan collapsed due to bad loans and mismanagement. In addition, my wife and father-in-law invested almost $400,000 in a shopping center being built by Keating. My wife and father-in-law retained an 8 percent interest in a shopping center project put together by Keating in 1986 until the project was sold in 1998. Profits from the sale of the McCain-Keating shopping center totaled between $100,000 and $1 million. My career benefited from the support of the powerful Phoenix 40 group—the leading big shots of that city—a group started by Dan Quayle's grandpa. But you guessed it; I portray myself as an opponent of special interests in politics and the media eats this up. I, my wife and our baby sitter made at least 9 trips at Keating's expense on his jet. Federal regulators filed a $1 Billion racketeering and fraud case against Keating and me and 4 other senators for siphoning savings and loan assets into our political coffers. None of us senators was convicted. The Keating Five scandal in 1989 implicated me and 4 other senators in strong-arming federal officials to back off their investigation of Charles Keating, former Chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan association. In exchange, it is uncontested that we 5 senators reportedly received close to $1.3 million in campaign contributions from Keating. I was rebuked by the Senate Ethics Committee for my dealings with Keating for bad judgment and forced to pay back thousands of dollars I survived the political scandal surrounding Charles Keating Jr. in part by sucking up to the press big time and becoming "a straight talker". I'm a good friend of Sen. John Kerry although I hated him at first. Despite my own dealings with Charles Keating and involvement with the Keating Five Scandal, I have worked with Sen. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin on campaign reform: you know, the McCain-Feingold Bill. That is, I used to support major campaign-finance reform measures that bore my name. In June 2006, I flip-flopped and announced my opposition to a major McCain-Feingold provision. I sponsored in 2006 legislation to require grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. In 2007, after receiving "feedback" on the proposal, I told far-right activist groups that I now oppose the measure I'd backed, another flip-flop. I have positioned myself as a champion of campaign finance reform and an opponent of special interests. But the New York Times wrote of me: "Yet a look at his rapid ascension shows that his early career was founded on special-interest money, and that he might never have emerged from the competitive world of Arizona politics without the steadfast backing of this city's (Phoenix) political and business establishment." My father's beer distributorship in Arizona was accused in 1992 by a former lobbyist of making contributions to state legislators in the names of its employees, an illegal tactic known as bundling. Company officials denied the accusation, the former lobbyist withdrew it, and no one from the company was charged with any wrongdoing. I count more than 30 lobbyists among my chief fundraisers, more than any other presidential candidate. I've spent a career decrying "special interests" in politics and attacking politicians who offer special access to them in order to raise money, yet I routinely court lobbyists and their wealthy clients. I took a break from the presidential campaign trail in March 2007 to fly to a posh Utah ski resort ( Deer Valley ) where I mingled with hundreds of top corporate executives assembled by J.P. Morgan Chase. Shortly after, J.P. Morgan executives donated more than $56,250 to me. My campaign manager described it like this, "We were very much in the friend-making business." Isn't it nice to be called a campaign finance reformer by the media and get easy money like this at the same time? A recent study (2007) by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute and the advocacy group Public Citizen found that I have more lobbyists raising funds for my presidential bid than do any of my rivals. I have 32 "bundlers" of donations who are lobbyists. Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani® is the closest to me with 29 lobbyist bundlers, followed by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) with 18. My campaign manager is a former lobbyist who represented major telecommunications companies. My campaign's senior adviser is Charles R. Black Jr., chairman of BKSH & Associates, which represents drug companies, an oil company, an automaker, a telecommunications company, defense contractors and the steel industry, among others. Some of my other advisors have included former congressman Tom Loeffler (R-Tex.) Chairman of the Loeffler Group, whose clients include oil, auto and telecommunications companies as well as a tobacco firm and an airline client. Others include: the lobbyists Timothy P. McKone of AT&T, Robert S. Aiken of Phoenix-based Pinnacle West Capital, John W. Timmons of the Cormac Group and John Green of Ogilvy Government Relations. Also at Ogilvy is a major McCain fundraiser, Wayne L. Berman. Their firms' clients have been a significant source of campaign contributions to me. Executives for the clients of Ogilvy Government Relations gave at least $271,000 for my presidential bid (as through 2007). Loeffler Group client employees donated $118,500, according to a Washington Post analysis. BKSH clients' executives gave $24,000.

REFERENCES (Please contact):

Charles H. Keating, Jr. (who admitted to having committed bankruptcy fraud and served 4 years in prison for it). The other Keating 5 senators (of course, I was one too): Sen. Alan Cranston (Ca); Sen. Dennis DeConcini (Az.); Sen. John Glenn (Oh.); Sen. Douglas Riegle (Mi.). Also: Jerry Falwell; Sen. Joe Lieberman; Karl Rove; my good old friend, George W. Bush; and, Mitt Romney (yes, the champion flip-flopper is now aboard my campaign even though he really thinks I'm a douche bag).