What will be Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)'s legacy?

[NewYorkExpress]

Enabler of Sarah Palin.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Iraq war cheerleader, losing to "that one".

[America Needs R'hllor]

That he put country before party most of the time.  That's almost unheard of nowadays.

[christian peralta]

A Freedom Fighter for someones, an Horrible Person for others.
Just like they say before, his legacy will be mixed just like every other politician.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Mixed, similar to Ted Kennedy.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

Realistically, most presidential candidates are remembered for their candidacy and little else. So, he'll probably be remembered almost entirely for his 2008 campaign, and probably his reputation for being a maverick in the years preceding that to be used as a preface to his candidacy. His time after 2008 is pretty unremarkable.

[Use Your Illusion]

I'll remember as a near reflection of what the Republican party thinks it is but what it actually is. That's not a shot at him either, I wish every day he had been President in 2000.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Hasn't his career been one long psuedo-mavericky failure?

Lost the 2000 GOP primary
Lost the 2008 Presidential election
McCain-Finegold gutted by SCOTUS (Citizens United etc.)
The gang of fourteen didn't save the filibuster
Immigration reform was a total fiasco
The less said about Iraq and the current direction of Republican party foreign policy the better...

[Fargobison]

The last true statesman.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I don't mean this to be disrespectful, but I don't think he'll be remembered as prominently as people think.  He won't be remembered negatively, but he wasn't a Giant of the Senate in the sense that, say, John Stennis  or Bob Dole were.  His Presidential campaigns did not impact his political party in the way that George McGovern's did, or George Wallace's did, or Barry Goldwater's did.  He has the sort of legacy that Bob Dole has, but Bob Dole did so much more; he was RNC Chairman, Republican leader in the Senate for years, and a guy who had a much more substantial legislative career.

John McCain was a political personality.  He was a non-conformist, and he was willing to be a maverick in terms of occasionally alienating his party for a principle he believed in.  He served honorably, and he was enough of an FF for me to vote for him in 2008.  I may be missing something, but aside from McCain-Feingold, I don't see evidence of a large legacy.  His persona is bigger than his resume.  I don't mean this as a knock, but no one here gives a lot of thought to Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, or Thomas Dewey around here, and sort of view McCain's legacy as in the range of those guys.

[Devout Centrist]

I don’t like to speak ill of the dying, but his legacy will be one of grandstanding, corruption, warmongering, and xenophobia

[Rookie Yinzer]

This man is awful. I will be avoiding the media in the immediate aftermath of his passing. I can’t deal with the circle jerk.

[Rules for me, but not for thee]

Dubious. I mean he did pick Sarah Palin as a VP, and we could've had Ron Paul in '08.  I'll always dislike him for that. As a politician, the last 15 or so years were not good for him.

As a man and citizen, he served with honor - and at least that is a good part is his legacy.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Dubious. I mean he did pick Sarah Palin as a VP, and we could've had Ron Paul in '08.  I'll always dislike him for that. As a politician, the last 15 or so years were not good for him.

As a man and citizen, he served with honor - and at least that is a good part is his legacy.

He blew his chance to enlarge his legacy.

As a Presidential candidate, he could have picked Lieberman as his VP.  This would have represented a truly bipartisan effort to get America out of a number of quagmires.  His campaign may have succeeded in 2008, and even if it hadn't, he wouldn't have had Palin as part of his legacy.

As a defeated candidate, he COULD have brought a spirit of compromise to healthcare.  He COULD have helped wheel in Obamacare as a Bi-Partisan Romneycare on a national level, and he could have convinced the GOP that this was something they needed to commit to in order to make it work.  Instead, he joined the obstructionists. 

The reason I always doubted Obamacare was that even as an idea borrowed from an old GOP playbook, the GOP was bound and determined to sabotage it and make it fail.  It COULD have worked, but between the obstruction of the Congress and the unprecedented intervention of Republican State AGs, the SCOTUS gutted the heart out of Obamacare.  McCain didn't even try to broker a compromise; he joined the opposition; then he joined the opposition to repeal, not as a principled move, but to anger Trump. 

McCain could have made a lot of the rancor we have today less than what it is and he blew it.  All of his "Moderate Hero" work seemed to be motivated by resentment toward the Republicans who did make it to the White House (Bush 43 and Trump, both of whom did, admittedly, rag on him).  During the Obama years, he was a reliable part of the obstruction; he wasn't there to see the unreasonableness of blocking the Garland nomination.  When he was needed the most to bring moderation to politics, and when some real heroism was needed, he was not the "Moderate Hero" once.  Not even for five (5) minutes.  He blew the chance at a bigger legacy than the one he'll have.

[Cassandra]

I don't mean this to be disrespectful, but I don't think he'll be remembered as prominently as people think.  He won't be remembered negatively, but he wasn't a Giant of the Senate in the sense that, say, John Stennis  or Bob Dole were.  His Presidential campaigns did not impact his political party in the way that George McGovern's did, or George Wallace's did, or Barry Goldwater's did.  He has the sort of legacy that Bob Dole has, but Bob Dole did so much more; he was RNC Chairman, Republican leader in the Senate for years, and a guy who had a much more substantial legislative career.

John McCain was a political personality.  He was a non-conformist, and he was willing to be a maverick in terms of occasionally alienating his party for a principle he believed in.  He served honorably, and he was enough of an FF for me to vote for him in 2008.  I may be missing something, but aside from McCain-Feingold, I don't see evidence of a large legacy.  His persona is bigger than his resume.  I don't mean this as a knock, but no one here gives a lot of thought to Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, or Thomas Dewey around here, and sort of view McCain's legacy as in the range of those guys.

While I agree with your assessment of McCain's career, I suspect his legacy may be inflated by the "maverick" image he cultivated. I envision well-to-do "moderates"* latching onto this image of the man as a totem, something to be waved around in the opinion columns of The Washington Post and New York Times as this countries politics continue to polarize.

* I'm thinking here of that class of people who are referred to by such slogans as "coastal elites," the "[upper] 10%,"  and so on. The class of people who are well-educated, who make near and above six figures, and who combine a liberal outlook with strong opposition to politics which would advance the position of workers, opposition rooted within their own class interests. Fifty years ago, this crowd might have been referred to as the "intelligentsia."

[Blair]

Tbf if you asked me what Bob Doles legacy was I’d say it was that  ‘stop lying about my record’ quote and his rather geriatric run in 1996. Bob Dole has much more of a GOP centric legacy, than one in the Senate.

I think a rather fair view of McCain legacy will be around his 2000 presidential run, which ties perfectly into the rather nostalgic retail politics of old (See how Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 campaign is covered for the power of this legacy) and his willingness to take on the GOP establishment on both Campaign Finance reform, the Bush Tax cuts and the repeal of Obamacare.

Of course any fair assesment would remind people that he shamelessly ditched immigration reform in 2007 to become the GOP nominee, that picked and defended Sarah Palin whilst harking about Obama’s inexperience and who also went along, and was one of the biggest cheerleaders for Iraq.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

A bloodthirsty psychopath from youth until death, and the claimer of untold innocent lives (both at his own hands overseas and through political machinations back home).

[libertpaulian]

His image as a Moderate Hero, his military service, and his neocon views.

[Sestak]

This thread aged well.

[fluffypanther19]

That for better or worse, he served his country

this and there is plenty of worse, a really mixed legacy, but i still respect him

[Kyle Rittenhouse is a Political Prisoner]

One of the last decent Republicans, and a lifelong fighter for actual freedom.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

This was my favorite John McCain moment:

[HisGrace]

Obviously his presidential campaigns, historically speaking. Then his standing up to Trump and being among "the last of his kind" and campaign finance reform.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I don't mean this to be disrespectful, but I don't think he'll be remembered as prominently as people think.  He won't be remembered negatively, but he wasn't a Giant of the Senate in the sense that, say, John Stennis  or Bob Dole were.  His Presidential campaigns did not impact his political party in the way that George McGovern's did, or George Wallace's did, or Barry Goldwater's did.  He has the sort of legacy that Bob Dole has, but Bob Dole did so much more; he was RNC Chairman, Republican leader in the Senate for years, and a guy who had a much more substantial legislative career.

John McCain was a political personality.  He was a non-conformist, and he was willing to be a maverick in terms of occasionally alienating his party for a principle he believed in.  He served honorably, and he was enough of an FF for me to vote for him in 2008.  I may be missing something, but aside from McCain-Feingold, I don't see evidence of a large legacy.  His persona is bigger than his resume.  I don't mean this as a knock, but no one here gives a lot of thought to Alf Landon, Wendell Willkie, or Thomas Dewey around here, and sort of view McCain's legacy as in the range of those guys.

John Ste-who?  Bob Dole... ?

Your age is showing.

[Mr. Morden]

McCain's image as a "maverick" was largely manufactured. At least 90% of the time he was a loyal foot soldier for his party leadership, whether it was Bush and Iraq or McConnell and obstructing Obama "just cause". A couple of votes that deviates from the party's orthodoxy won't change the overall picture.

There's more to it than that, I'd say.  During Bush 43's first term, McCain was siding with the Dems on a wide range of domestic policy issues.  Here's an abbreviated list, written in 2002:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/chatterbox/2002/04/come_home_mccain.html

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McCain's 2000 presidential run saw him as the centrist alternative to Bush, and when he lost the nomination, he responded by moving even farther left.  But then, around 2004 or so, McCain seemed to make the decision that he could run for the GOP nomination one more time in 2008, so started marching rightward again.  But his "maverick" image at least partially persisted.