Iowa politicians take to social media to honor colleague John McCain

After the prominent senator’s death, Iowa politicians remember McCain for “tenacity and courage.”

Sen. John McCain receives the applause from the audience before beginning a foreign policy address to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles in March 2008 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel. He talked about a collaborative foreign policy with input of allies abroad that differs from the go-it-alone approach of President Bush. (Annie Wells/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

Sarah Watson, Politics Editor
August 26, 2018

After Sen. John McCain, 81, an iconic maverick and Republican, died Saturday, Iowa politicians of both sides of the aisle responded with condolences and memories of the senator on social media.

The bipartisan reaction highlights McCain’s legacy as a conservative maverick who worked across the aisle and occasionally bucked his party to align his policies with his morals.

According to a statement from his office, he died at 4:28 p.m. Aug. 25.  

Diagnosed in 2017 with a malignant tumor, called a glioblastoma, the Arizona senator has been often absent from the Senate floor for intermittent treatments in the past year. In one journey to Capitol Hill, he dramatically gave a thumbs down as the deciding vote in a losing GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

On Aug. 24, McCain discontinued medical treatment “with his usual strength of will,” according to a statement from McCain’s family.

McCain was a Navy flier during the Vietnam War and was imprisoned as a prisoner of war after his plane was shot down.

Twice McCain visited Iowa before presidential elections, in 2000 and 2008, both of which times the senator was unsuccessful in his presidential bid.

Immediately after the announcement of the senator’s death, Iowa politicians on both sides of the aisle took to Twitter to commemorate their colleague.