Arizona, USA                                                                                                                                                                                        26 Aug. 2018                                                                                                                                                                                       (US Today/Media)

John McCain, Six-Term Senator from his hometown Arizona, USA, 2008 Republican presidential nominee died at age 81 today at 0428 PM, MST, announced by his office. His wife and other family members were with him.

John McCain, son of Admiral John S. McCain Jr. served in Vietnam. Lt. Commander John McCain was captured by North Vietnamese where he spent 5 years as POW until his release in 1973 along with other POWs.

Destined to be remembered among the political giants of Arizona history, the six-term U.S. senator disclosed in July 2017 that he had been diagnosed with a deadly form of brain cancer called glioblastoma.

Meghan McCain, his TV commentator daughter, wrote Saturday on Twitter: “I love you forever – my beloved father.”

McCain was a two-time presidential candidate, losing the GOP nomination in 2000 to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush and the general election in 2008 to then-Sen. Barack Obama.

The unsuccessful White House bids were spotlight moments in a long political career that began with his election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982. After two terms, McCain ascended to the U.S. Senate in 1987, replacing legendary Republican U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater, who in 1964 was the only other Arizonan to top the national ticket of a major U.S. political party. McCain was re-elected to the Senate in 1992, 1998, 2004, 2010 and 2016. He became Arizona’s senior senator in 1995 and chairman of the influential Armed Services Committee in 2015.

He was ensnared by the “Keating Five” scandal of the late 1980s and was deemed by the Senate Ethics Committee to have demonstrated poor judgment by joining four Senate colleagues in meeting with federal thrift regulators on behalf of political benefactor Charles H. Keating Jr., a savings-and-loan tycoon and developer.

It was in the wake of that scandal, in the 1990s and early- to mid-2000s, McCain’s “maverick” reputation began to take shape, as he led fights for campaign finance reform and comprehensive immigration reform and against Big Tobacco. During his 2000 presidential run, McCain famously decried leaders of the Religious Right as “agents of intolerance,” a gutsy fight to pick for a Republican.