Sen. John McCain, the former Navy pilot, has never been afraid to fly solo politically.
The veteran Republican senator on Friday killed off a conservative attempt to terminate Obamacare, a law McCain has repeatedly criticized.
His reason had more to do with style than substance. The 80-year-old McCain is a pre-social media, old-fashioned lawmaker: He insists fellow Republicans should not make the same mistake as Democrats by jamming a partisan bill through Congress.
McCain was lionized by relieved Democrats and castigated by angry Trump supporters, but he doesn’t care. The former prisoner of war tortured in Vietnam has dealt with more brutal opponents before and he’s got bigger problems to address, such as a malignant brain tumor.
It’s that go-it-alone-if-have-to approach — all too rare in Congress — that once earned the 2008 presidential candidate the moniker of a “maverick.”
Make no mistake, though. McCain does not like Obamacare. He’s repeatedly backed efforts to undo the health-care law passed by Democrats in 2010 without a single Republican vote.
“From the beginning, I have believed that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced with a solution that increases competition, lowers costs, and improves care for the American people,” McCain said in a statement after he cast the deciding vote to defeat a Republican alternative known as “skinny repeal.”
Yet McCain has also grown increasingly frustrated by the intense partisanship in Washington that’s created so much rancor among Democrats and Republicans they rarely cross party lines on key votes.
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