Mccain Again Plays Spoiler for Gop

WASHINGTON — John McCain faced a choice that counterbalanced friendship, party loyalty and his convictions. He made the decision some of his closest advisers expected.

Looking at the twilight of his career and a grim cancer diagnosis, the Republican senator from Arizona who prides himself on an independent streak could non be moved to go forth with a last-ditch GOP push to overhaul the nation's health care organization.

Those close to him say he wrestled with the choice — the legislation was championed past his best friend in the Senate — but rarely strayed from his intention to send a bulletin to the institution where he's spent iii decades.

That message was bipartisanship and what he cast as the integrity of the Senate process that insists on debate and oft yields compromise. The call for "regular order" isn't the stuff of campaign bumper stickers, but it has become McCain's mission since he's returned to Washington, to continue up his piece of work and handling for an often fatal brain tumor.

"If he supported this, then he guts his whole bulletin that he's been trying to requite his colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans," said Rick Davis, who managed McCain's two presidential campaigns and remains close to the lawmaker.

Davis said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., "fabricated his pitch" to his longtime friend, simply McCain was motivated by "his bulldoze to move the Senate toward more comity and bipartisanship."

McCain's decision probably will kill the bill and vanquish the GOP's hopes for repealing the Obama health law this year. Republicans take tried to go it lonely in overhauling the Affordable Intendance Act, speeding two attempts at passage along with minimal hearings and debate.

McCain's statement declaring his opposition to the legislation Friday was the second time he batty the effort.

In July, bearing a fresh surgery scar over his left heart, McCain scolded lawmakers from the Senate floor. Incremental progress isn't glamorous or exciting, and information technology can exist "less satisfying than winning," said the man who won his party's nomination but lost the White Business firm in 2008. He struck a similar tone on Fri in a written statement, saying he believed "we could do amend working together, Republicans and Democrats, and have not nonetheless actually tried."

That McCain is well enough to play this primal figure in the Republican health care efforts is a surprise to many given the gravity of his diagnosis. He announced this summer that he had an aggressive and normally fatal tumor chosen glioblastoma, the same blazon of tumor that killed Sen. Edward Thou. Kennedy, D-Mass., in 2009 and Young man Biden, son of and then-Vice President Joe Biden, in 2015.

Biden is among the many longtime colleagues who has been in bear on with McCain since his diagnosis, and the two are scheduled to reunite next calendar month, when Biden presents the senator with the National Constitution Middle'due south Liberty Medal.

McCain has privately bristled at his render to Washington existence covered like a melodrama, and his friends have steadfastly tried to avoid treating him like a man nearing the end of his life. When McCain's children and some colleagues flocked to his Arizona ranch this summer, the mood was upbeat and the senator often joined his guests for hikes.

"What this man has been through in his life gives him a very calm and reasoned attitude toward decease," said Charlie Black, a veteran McCain adviser. "He believes he's escaped it many times and perchance will again."

Persevering against seemingly insurmountable odds has been a constant in McCain'due south life and shaped his political career.

As a Navy pilot, McCain survived a fire that killed 134 sailors aboard the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam War. He was captured after his plane was shot down during a bombing mission over Hanoi and spent five years equally a prisoner of war, refusing early release. After in life, he survived several bouts with melanoma, a dangerous pare cancer.

McCain, his staff and his family take made some adjustments to account for his desire to work through his disease.

Afterwards finishing his first round of radiation and chemotherapy this summer at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, McCain and his wife, Cindy, decided to decamp to Washington, moving the senator's treatment to the National Institutes of Health. He'southward undergoing a second round of therapies at present and spends weekends in the nation's uppercase rather than returning to Arizona.

Friends notice that the 81-year-old tires more than easily in the afternoon, and his staff tries to forepart-load his schedule almost days, a claiming in the sometimes nocturnal Senate. Just friends and advisers say the senator is committed to keeping upwardly as much of a regular schedule as possible while Congress is in session. As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he stays in regular touch with top assistants officials, including national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

"The citizens of Arizona are getting their money'south worth," said Steve Duprey, a friend of the senator.

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Source: https://www.telegram.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/23/mccains-choice-ailing-senator-plays-spoiler-again-for-gop/18744666007/

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