I really wonder about McCain. His major life trauma was losing, that is being captured by the enemy. Has that driven the desire to win, to conquer, to come out on top out of him.
His actions after release point to a man who was going to make himself comfortable for life and never go through that again. Was he ever a maverick?
I cut McCain loose when he was one of the keating five. Everything since has just reaffirmed my decision.
As I observe him as an old man who has had everything handed to him without owning up to much or any responsibility, I have to ask. One wonders if he was captured at all in Viet Nam. He seems like the kind of guy who would just walk up and surrender. He took the easy way to college with connections instead of qualification, he spent the rest of the war after wrecking a few planes not fighting, he left his disabled wife for a beer heiress, he got involved in bank corruption scandal with no consequence, he was handed the presidential nomination and couldn't even beat Obama, he lied to voters to keep his Senate seat, and now he's saying it's more convenient to bow down to Obama rather than fight.
Whatta' guy. Someone said on another thread a few weeks back (about Ryan I think): "never trust a man who marries for his money".
The answer to your question “was he ever a maverick” is NO.
Plus the fact that his major life trauma was not the fact that his incompetent flying got him shot down and taken prisoner; it was his loss to Bush in the 2000 primary election.
After his loss to Bush; what little sanity and loyalty to country and party still remained in him, was completely destroyed by his over inflated ego.
He truly believed that he was “THE ONE”; when his own party rejected him, it completely destroyed what ever sanity he had left.
He has spent the past 13 to 14 years trying desperately to destroy the thing he believes to be responsible for that loss; the thing he professes to love and belong to, the true conservatives in what is left of the Republican Party.