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McCain was a force of nature in Washington with an unrivaled global stature

. (Video: Joyce Koh/Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/mccain-was-a-force-of-nature-in-washington-with-an-unrivaled-global-stature/2018/08/25/aee7457a-9fe8-11e8-8e87-c869fe70a721_story.html?utm_term=.9892356a20f6
By Paul Kane
Reporter
August 25 at 8:40 PM

Everyone walked away from fights with Sen. John McCain a little worse for wear, even if the Arizona Republican came out on the losing end. Some friends joked that McCain even drove his Vietnamese prison guards crazy.

“John, you know those guards that you were stuck with for six years? They’re still going to group sessions all these years later trying to recover,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told McCain, on more than one occasion.

McCain — a prisoner of war, 36-year veteran of Congress and onetime Republican nominee for president — was a force of nature in Washington whose likes will not be seen anytime soon. His global stature rivaled or even exceeded the standing of official congressional leaders.

McCain used his prominence to wage battles with congressional leaders and presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike, perhaps none fought quite as forcefully as McCain’s clashes with President Trump in his last months before succumbing Saturday to brain cancer. He returned home to Arizona in mid-December and had not been back to Washington since.

“You’ve got someone who has really blazed an arc across the firmament of American history that will be rivaled, but rarely matched,” Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), a frequent traveling partner when McCain led congressional delegations abroad, said in a recent interview. “A huge loss for the interest of liberty and rule of law and regular order and respect for the traditions of this institution.”

In the first half of 2017, McCain traveled more than 75,000 miles to more than 15 nations, meeting with longtime allies fearful of dramatic policy changes that Trump had suggested in sometimes offhand comments or gestures. His colleagues called it the reassurance tour, and in the fall of 2017 McCain delivered several speeches that did not mention Trump by name but told crowds that it was “time to wake up” and to “fight isolationism, protectionism and nativism.”

McCain’s death marks the final passing of a generation of senators who were major power brokers, but also a contingent whose first loyalty was to the institution and its place in history where great compromises were forged.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/mccain-was-a-force-of-nature-in-washington-with-an-unrivaled-global-stature/2018/08/25/aee7457a-9fe8-11e8-8e87-c869fe70a721_story.html?utm_term=.9892356a20f6