Biden, McCain Have Grand Legacies

Besides being the vice presidential nominee on the Republican ticket, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is a grandmother-in-waiting, as daughter Bristol is scheduled to have a baby in December.

Democratic candidate for the U.S. presidency, Barack Obama? Well, grandparenthood is a while off for him — daughters Sasha and Malia are both younger than 10.

But the other two members of the Republican and Democratic tickets — Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), and Joe Biden (D-Delaware) — are both grandfathers several times over.

And, Sen. McCain the Republican nominee for President, not only has four grandchildren, he also has a historical lineage as a "fighter pilot" that traces back to his grandfather.

McCain's grandfather, John "Slew" McCain, was an admiral in the U.S. Navy who commanded aircraft carriers in the Pacific during World War II. In the 1930s, the military had passed regulations requiring that all commanders of aircraft carriers be aviators. Slew McCain, in his fifties, went to flight school to earn his wings.

Eventually, he rose to command all U.S. carriers in the Pacific, and he was aboard the USS Missouri when the Japanese surrendered in September, 1945. In fact, Slew McCain can be seen in the background of the famous photo of Five-Star Gen. Douglas MacArthur accepting the surrender on the deck of the ship.

Sadly, Slew McCain died after returning home to San Diego — just four days after the surrender.

"'He had a very hard life to start with,'" Sen McCain told the Arizona Republic. '"He smoked and he drank and he didn't take care of himself. Also, the strain of operations in World War II was immense.'"

Sen. Biden, the Democratic candidate for vice-president on Obama’s ticket, has three children and five grandchildren. It has been well-documented that Sen. Biden, who lost his first wife and an infant daughter in an automobile accident, took the train home each night from Washington D.C. to Delaware to be with his two young surviving sons, Beau and Hunter.

Not only is it something he still does, but Beau Biden, now attorney general of Delaware, in a speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, told how his father recently took the train home — skipping a Washington cocktail party — in order to be at his granddaughter’s birthday party.

Biden always takes Amtrak Train 2103, and the conductor, Gregg Weaver, recently told the Washington Post that Biden constantly talks about his grandchildren.

"Regular guy," Weaver said of Biden, recalling that the Senator told him he had fixed up a room in his Delaware home to be a playroom for the grandchildren.

"He calls it grandchildren-bait," Weaver told the Post.

Biden said his grandchildren actually played a part in his getting along so well with Sen. Obama. On the second night of the convention, Biden’s granddaughter Finnegan asked if the Biden grandchildren and the Obama girls could have a sleep-over.

"We're standing there and ... you know, she said, 'Pop, we want to have a sleepover,'" Biden said during a speech in Florida earlier this month. "And I said, 'You do?' And they said 'yeah.' And the end result of this was, we cleared out one of the rooms, took out the beds. Seriously. And they put down mats on the floor, and Barack's two daughters and my four granddaughters — actually my oldest one, who's 15, did not. But the three youngest granddaughters and until he got a little rowdy my 3-year-old grandson, we had pizza brought in and tapes of the various shows they like to put in."

Biden said it makes him realize why he decided to accept Obama’s offer to run on the ticket.

“I walked out of there realizing why I'm in this,” he said. “It sounds corny. I'm in this for my children and my grandchildren.”

These days, the election is on everyone's mind — including ours. So from time to time, Grandparents.com reports on political issues that pertain to grandparents and grandchildren. We make every effort to keep this coverage 100 percent impartial — meaning, we are not affiliated with nor do we support a particular party, campaign, or organization. What we do support is every grandparent's right to know about the issues that affect them. We think it's great that so many grandparents are getting involved in the election, and, as always, we'll do our very best to keep you informed.