McCain and Biden ‘really liked each other’
Former Vice President will speak at political rival’s memorial Thursday
WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Joe Biden said it caused him “some consternation” in 2008 to find himself on opposing presidential tickets with his longtime friend and Senate colleague John McCain, then the GOP nominee.
Chosen as the running mate to Democrat Barack Obama, Biden was expected to fulfill the traditional role of a vice presidential candidate – serving as an attack dog.
He did just that, slamming McCain as “profoundly out of touch” on the economy in a speech in Michigan in September 2008. But in the same speech, Biden talked about his friendship with McCain, saying, “If he needed my personal help, I’d go.”
Nearly a decade later, Biden kept that promise. As McCain battled a deadly brain cancer last year, he and his family turned to the former vice president for comfort. In an on-camera moment on ABC’s “The View” that went viral, Biden comforted McCain’s daughter Meghan.
Thursday, Biden is scheduled to speak in Phoenix about McCain, his friend of four decades who died Saturday at 81. The Phoenix event is among several days of memorials that will include tributes Saturday from two of McCain’s other former political rivals, former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, before McCain’s burial Sunday at the U.S. Naval Academy Cemetery in Annapolis, Maryland.
Ted Kaufman, a former Delaware senator who is close to Biden, likened the former vice president and the Arizona senator to two football players who would play hard for opposing teams, then leave all of that on the field and go out together after the game.
“He and John had a number of issues on which they flat out didn’t agree, but they didn’t personalize it,” Kaufman said. “They really liked each other.”
Personal in their connection but never personal in politics, the friendship between McCain and Biden may seem unusual, given the polarization that grips Washington. It was not unusual for McCain, who was viewed as a “maverick” and had many friendships across the aisle.
He worked in the Senate with Democrat John Kerry, a fellow veteran who became secretary of state, to push for reconciliation with Vietnam in the 1990s. He set aside stark political differences in 2014 with Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to reach a compromise on veterans’ health care. He even drank vodka shots with Hillary Clinton in Estonia when she represented New York as a Democratic senator in 2004.
Biden and McCain met in the 1970s, when Biden was a young senator and McCain was a Navy Senate liaison. Bi- den traveled widely as a Senate Foreign Relations Committee member and would pick McCain to accompany him. Biden had wanted to meet McCain ever since seeing the footage of his return from Vietnam, where he was held as a prisoner of war for 51⁄ years.
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“He was clearly, kind of, our hero” because of the way he handled his captivity, said Kaufman, who was Biden’s chief of staff at the time.
McCain was in demand for details accompanying senators overseas because he was fun to be around, journalist Robert Timberg wrote in “The Nightingale’s Song.”
“In an Athens taverna, he danced on a table with Senator Joseph Biden’s wife, Jill, a red bandana clenched in his teeth,” Timberg wrote.
The two recalled those early trips when Biden bestowed the 2017 Liberty Medal on McCain in October, honoring his courage, loyalty and “incredible heroism.”
Biden said he sought McCain’s advice before his discussions with foreign leaders.
“He not only became a friend, he became an adviser,” Biden said.
McCain joked that he carried Biden’s luggage on those trips – and “resented it ever since.” Biden griped that McCain was supposed to, but “the son of a gun never did.”
“They were always cutting up,” Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., said of the two. “Great senses of humor. They were a little bit mischievous.”
McCain died after suffering from a deadly form of brain cancer called glioblastoma, the same disease that led to the death of Biden’s son Beau more than three years ago. Biden lost his first wife, Neilia, and their 13-month-old daughter in a car accident in 1972.
After McCain’s diagnosis, Biden remained in “constant” contact with the McCain family and until recently with McCain, about his treatment and what he was doing, Kaufman said. Biden made an under-the-radar trip to McCain’s ranch in Arizona to spend time with the family.
Biden, who launched a “Moonshot” anti-cancer initiative as vice president, chairs the independent, nonprofit Biden Cancer Initiative to build on the goal of a comprehensive and cohesive approach to cancer prevention.
In his last book, “The Restless Wave,” McCain recalled his long conversation about his diagnosis with Biden.
“Our conversation was equal parts practical and encouraging, an old friend helping another through a rough patch he had prior experience with,” McCain wrote in his book with co-author Mark Salter. “Joe and I have argued a lot over the years, but he is a first-class human being, and it’s a lucky thing to be his friend.”
“They were always cutting up. Great senses of humor.” Tom Carper Democratic senator from Delaware