McCain the "maverick" fights his ultimate battle

By Jeff Mason

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, honor 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, HONOR

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 maneuver knocked him unconscious and broke his arms and a leg. He plunged into a Hanoi lake.