I was thinking about mentioning Senator McCain the other day, and now I just have to.
Remember John McCain. He had a couple of goes at being President. First time around was for the 2000 election, but he lost out to George W Bush for the Republican party nomination. We all know how that went for the next eight years! Still, he stuck around as a senator, and when Dubya had run out of time, he had another go, this time securing the Republican nomination, and ran up against Obama as the Democratic nominee. Again, we know what happened, McCain was defeated, and we had the historic moment of a first black President of the USA.
However, having been a senator since the 1980s, McCain wasn't about to disappear, and he went back to work, and at the age of 80 has recently secured a sixth term in US Senate as the representative for Arizona.
Sadly, Senator McCain has been diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour, has had surgery, and is facing an uncertain future. Upon his return to the Senate earlier this week he was afforded a standing ovation. He took the opportunity to berate his colleagues, to remind them that they'd been listening to the wrong people, to the commentators and the news outlets, the 'loudmouths'. He said that what they needed to do was to return to 'regular order', which meant listening to constituents' needs, being willing to work in a cross-party fashion, and finding a way to get things done.
Well, it didn't take long for Senator McCain to be true to his word. Irrespective of huge pressure from his own party, last night he made a stand, and decided to vote against the latest attempt by the Trump administration to repeal Obama-care. In doing so, hopefully he has safeguarded access to affordable healthcare for millions of people (something we think of as normal) for the foreseeable future, and hopefully the Trump circus will turn its attention to something else. Senator McCain needed to be there to make the difference - the vote was 51-49.
Well done Senator McCain.