Former McCain adviser says Democratic win in Arizona may be senator's 'revenge'
Joe Biden was first Democratic presidential candidate to win state since 1996
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Democrats' ballot sweep of traditionally red Arizona may be an homage to the late Republican Sen. John McCain, many Twitter users are hypothesizing.
Even McCain's former adviser in 2000, GOP strategist Mike Murphy, told MSNBC that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's win in the Copper State could be McCain's "revenge" against President Trump, with whom he had a contentious relationship.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"If @JoeBiden wins, it will be fitting that @realDonaldTrump was undone by a petty grievance with an American war hero and public servant of the highest character: Sen. John McCain," wrote former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.
"It would be poetic justice if Trump’s pettiness toward Sen. McCain (AZ) cost him the election," "Anonymous" author and former Trump official Miles Taylor tweeted. "His demand that we *not* lower U.S. flags in honor of the late war hero is what prompted me to write the anonymous op-ed in the first place."
Politico magazine's editor-in-chief Blake Hounshell wrote that Arizona's shift towards Democrats was "like the ghost of John McCain turning down his thumb one last time," a reference to the senator's famous vote against a repeal of Obamacare, and CNN's Ana Navarro-Cárdenas tweeted that she imagined it as "John McCain getting the last laugh."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}McCain's feud with Trump was longstanding, spanning nearly two decades.
In January of 2000, as Trump was making an early run for president, he criticized McCain's service during the Vietnam war.
A Naval aviator, McCain was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese after his plane was shot down on a bombing mission in 1967. He refused an early release, offered because his father was an admiral, and didn't return home until 1973.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Does being captured make you a hero?" Trump said in an interview on CBS. "I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
Fifteen years later, the pair clashed again, with the GOP's 2008 presidential nominee telling The Arizona Republic he disagreed with comments Trump made about immigrants.
In a piece in The New Yorker, the veteran senator said Trump "fired up the crazies." Trump responded by calling McCain a "dummy."
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Speaking in Iowa that summer, Trump said McCain was viewed as a war hero "because he was captured." The real estate mogul said he liked "people that weren’t captured.”
Yet, despite previous comments, the president also changed course on McCain several times throughout 2016.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}McCain defended Trump following comments the president made on soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder but withdrew any support for Trump just days later following the release of a 2005 recording in which Trump discussed kissing women and grabbing them by their genitalia.
In July of 2017, McCain's cancer diagnosis became public, though he fought the disease for another year.
It was during that time that McCain opposed the Republicans' attempt to repeal and replace the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, irking the president, who said the senator was tricked by Democrats.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}After McCain's death, U.S. flags at federal buildings were raised just two days after they had been lowered, a move that was widely criticized.
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Now, McCain's wife, Cindy, is supporting Biden and was appointed to the advisory board for his transition team ahead of the election.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Biden is the first Democrat to clinch the state since President Bill Clinton won in 1996. Before that, a Democratic candidate had not won since Harry Truman's re-election in 1948.