He did, however, ask Mike Pence to attend in Trump’s stead.
I didn’t realize John’s mother is still alive. She’s 106 and now has to bury her son. 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/people.com/politics/john-mccain-death-mother-roberta-proud-legacy/amp/
My two John McCain stories:
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He’s the reason my family still has healthcare. His thumbs-down vote on the Trumpcare/ACA repeal is why my wife and I, who own our own business, still are able to have healthcare and provide it for my kids. For that I am thankful.
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In October of 2008, I was in my second month on the road working on the Obama campaign for work. My wife was at home seven months pregnant with our first kid. I had been living in a Staybridge Suites in Toledo, OH, since mid-August. My days were spent canvassing and phone-banking and coordinating union member volunteers. Twelve- to fifteen-hour days, six days a week, with Sundays being our light day-- only six hours on the doors. I remember vividly, I was feeling a bit nutty.
On a Sunday night late in October, I was sitting my hotel room and I heard some sirens off in the distance. They got closer and I saw flashing lights out of my window; I pulled back my blinds and looked out to see two dozen police cars escorting the Straight Talk Express into the parking lot.
So I texted my wife that McCain was outside, and I threw on an Obama/Biden t-shirt and headed down to the lobby as quick as I could.
When I got down there, there were probably 150-200 McCain people mingling in the Staybridge lounge area, all wearing suits and business attire. I sat in a soft chair by the fireplace with my laptop and Obama t-shirt for about 20 minutes, waiting to see McCain walk in. I didn’t have any plans to say anything, and obviously wasn’t going to make a scene; I just wanted to see the guy I’d been working so hard to defeat for the past 8 weeks. None of the McCain people ever said boo to me, didn’t even get a sideways look.
I got tired of waiting and decided to head back to my room. As I turned the corner toward the elevator, I saw about a half dozen secret service guys in suits hanging out at the very end of the hall by a back door, sorta going in and out of this one single room. I hung out at the corner by the elevator for an extra beat and pretended to look at my phone while I waited to see if I could get a glimpse of McCain, but didn’t want to linger too long, so I got on the elevator.
I figured that was his room, and that he wasn’t planning on coming in the main lobby, so I had just wasted my time out there. But whatever; it was still pretty fun in the moment and was a cool story to tell to my volunteers the next day.
So less than two weeks out from the 2008 election, I stayed in the same hotel as John McCain. I remember taking a fuzzy pic of the bus and motorcade through my hotel window with my 2008 flip phone, and thought I had posted on facebook, but apparently I only a posted a status update: October 29, 2008 “will be sleeping next to John McCain tonight. Yes, he’s staying in my hotel.”
ETA: I actually found a thread I posted here describing the McCain appearance at my hotel. I’m not editing the recollection of the story that I just posted, but how I remember is apparently a little different from how I reported it back then. Apparently, we had a heads-up that he was coming (I seem to remember his entourage just showing up out of the blue on a Sunday night; it was a Wednesday), and apparently I got some nasty looks in the lobby when I walked down with my Obama t-shirt.
McCain was always McCain. Nobody could change him.
In today’s world of politics, that says it all.
Disagreed with a few of his positions, but I never once doubted he put the interests of the entire country first.
In my mind, the guy knew how to eat a shit sandwich. In Hanoi “McCain refused repatriation unless every man taken in before him was also released”; Picking Palin pretty much assured we’d be saying “President Obama”; He delivered a dagger to Trump’s alternative healthcare plan; and he jumped on the ultimate grenade to harm right wing nutjob, Kelli Ward’s, senate race–she said so herself. So much more.
carnivorous plant grinds a legit axe, but of all the major Republican players, I think McCain’s opposition to the left’s ideas was at least founded in what he believed to be the best interest of his constituents and not because somebody paid him to think a certain way.
[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya;21171642…not because somebody paid him to think a certain way.[/QUOTE]
I believe that all Republicans want to keep health care making money for them.