McCain the "maverick" fights his ultimate battle

DEFIANCE, Ohio (Reuters) - Republican John McCain has been called a maverick, a hero and a survivor. But the title the longtime Arizona senator wants most is U.S. president.

The prize has long eluded him. At 72, McCain would be the oldest president to begin a first term in the White House and he has struggled hard to get this close.

In the heated final days of the campaign before Tuesday's election, opinion polls show McCain trailing Democrat Barack Obama nationally and in once-secure Republican states.

Being down has not stopped McCain before.

He endured more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, made his name in Congress with skirmishes over policy that often put him at odds with his party and fought a bruising battle for the Republican nomination in 2000 that he lost to George W. Bush, then the governor of Texas.

McCain's campaign has woven his story into a narrative of courage, honour and experience to contrast with Obama, a 47-year-old first-term U.S. senator from Illinois.

"The next president won't have time to get used to the office," McCain said at a rally in Defiance, Ohio. "I have been tested. Senator Obama has not."

McCain's critics highlight a lurking temper, a largely conservative voting record and a political brand damaged by his admitted weakness on economic issues and his association with Bush as the U.S. financial crisis roils the global economy and Washington fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If McCain wins, it will be thanks partly to a lifelong streak of rebelliousness.

The man whose mother plunged him into a tub of cold water to cool his temper as a 2-year-old went on to lead what he called a group of troublemakers while a student at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

The son and grandson of U.S. admirals, McCain graduated in 1958 in the bottom of his class and entered the Navy. By 1967, McCain was a pilot aboard the USS Forrestal aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam when he had a close brush with death.

TORTURE, Honour

While preparing to take off on a bombing run over North Vietnam, a missile fired accidentally from another plane hit McCain's fuel tanks, triggering explosions and fire.

McCain escaped by crawling onto the nose of his plane and diving onto the ship's fiery deck. The incident, called the worst non-combat accident in U.S. naval history, killed 134 men and wounded hundreds.

Three months later, McCain's life changed forever. On a bombing mission over Hanoi, a missile hit his plane, forcing him to eject. The manoeuvre knocked him unconscious and broke his arms and a leg. He plunged into a Hanoi lake.

An angry mob dragged him from the water, broke his shoulder with a rifle butt and bayoneted him. His captors imprisoned him at the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

Tortured and in solitary confinement for more than two of his 5 1/2 years as a POW, McCain turned down a chance to leave prison before comrades who had entered earlier.

"That is a defining moment in his life, and it speaks volumes about who he is to the American people," said Steve Schmidt, a top McCain aide.

Despite its significance in his life, McCain was not always comfortable making his prison experience part of the argument for his advancement to the White House.

Encouragement from supporters changed that and he made his trying times in Vietnam a larger part of his campaign story, drawing criticism that included former President Jimmy Carter accusing McCain of milking his past.

Supporters say McCain's biography gives weight to his presidential bid.

"I've been a John McCain fan since he stepped off the plane from Vietnam," Sandy Torbett, 66, said at a rally in Washington, Missouri, earlier this year.

"I think it does help him and, of course, I think him becoming a senator -- that helps him more."

MAVERICK

McCain's Senate career solidified his reputation as a maverick. He clashed with Republican colleagues over immigration, climate change and campaign finance reform.

He supported Bush's plan to go to war in Iraq but later lambasted the administration for its handling of the conflict and for a permissive attitude to torturing prisoners, a sensitive subject for a former POW.

This presidential campaign has had massive ups and downs.

A year ago it nearly crumbled, forcing McCain to shed staff and fight suggestions that his White House hopes were over.

The opposite occurred. More comfortable as an underdog than the frontrunner, McCain cut costs, regrouped and took another gamble with his strong support for Bush's "surge" strategy of sending more U.S. troops into Iraq.

Saying he said would rather lose a campaign than lose a war, McCain won his bet as security in Iraq improved and he locked up his party's nomination.

"When the war in Iraq was going badly and the public lost confidence, John stood up and called for more troops. And now we're winning," said Fred Thompson, a former senator and presidential contender, at the Republican convention.

But the job losses, home foreclosures and recession threats of the economic crisis have trumped the war for voters and McCain's efforts at economic fluency have largely fallen flat.

His comment that U.S. economic fundamentals were strong dogged him for weeks and a gamble to suspend his campaign to help broker a Wall Street bailout in Washington backfired.

So, in the final days before Americans vote Tuesday, McCain has embraced the underdog role again and proclaimed confidence despite being behind in the polls.

"We've got 'em right where we want 'em," he has said to applause at rally after rally. "Let's go win this election and get this country moving again."

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by John O'Callaghan)