Deciding to pick the inexperienced and extreme Sarah Palin as his running mate – a choice many say facilitated the rise of Donald Trump, threatening US democracy itself – John McCain mimed rolling a pair of dice and said: “Fuck it. Let’s do it.”

The pithy vignette is revealed in a new book, Insurgency: How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted, by Jeremy W Peters, a New York Times reporter. It was reported by Axios.

McCain, a Republican senator from Arizona, enjoyed a reputation as a political maverick.

He sometimes tried to deny it, for example in 2010 telling the reporter David Margolick: “I never considered myself a maverick. I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities.”

But that earned mockery – Jon Stewart said it was “like Rudy Giuliani coming out and going, ‘Hey, I never mentioned 9/11! What are you talking about?’” – and the new story from Peters only adds to the impression McCain was happy to take political risks, sometimes to the detriment of himself and those around him.

McCain died in 2018 but remains a figurehead of sorts for the few Republicans who defy Trump, whose dislike for the senator and Vietnam veteran is often demonstrated, sometimes in bizarre fashion.

In 2008, McCain was the Republican nominee to succeed George W Bush. He faced Barack Obama, an inexperienced senator from Illinois but a political meteor. Peters reports that in August, with election day three months off, needing a boost, McCain spoke to advisers at his ranch in Arizona.

He had narrowed his choice of running mate to three. There was Palin, governor of Alaska, a hard-right populist and political neophyte. There were two experienced moderates, Tim Pawlenty, then governor of Minnesota, and Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts.

According to Peters, a longtime aide, Mark Salter, “cautioned [McCain] voters could see a Palin pick as discordant with the message of readiness and experience that the campaign had been focusing on as a contrast with Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator.”

Salter told McCain: “There’s worse things, John, than losing an election. You could lose your reputation.”

Another aide, Steve Schmidt – now a prominent anti-Trump campaigner – has widely been blamed for the Palin pick. Peters reports that Schmidt “told McCain he should consider whether it would be worth it if he chose Palin and lost, but also knew in the end that he’d lost because he did something bold.

“What you’ve got to decide,” Schmidt reportedly said, reaching for a football metaphor, “is would you rather lose by seven going for it?”

Peters writes: “McCain turned to his wife, Cindy. ‘John, it’s a gamble,’ she said.

“This made McCain’s face light up. ‘Well, I wish you hadn’t said that,’ he said. McCain, an avid craps player, balled up his fist and blew on it, then shook it like he was about to roll a pair of dice.

“‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it.’”

With Palin at his side, McCain lost convincingly. Palin nonetheless became a national figure, mocked on the left, loved on the right, sharing airtime with the Tea Party, a hard-right anti-tax movement fed by big donors and, detractors said, racist resentment of the first Black president.

Romney was the Republican nominee in 2012, losing to Obama. Trump followed in 2016, blowing the party establishment out of the water with a campaign of anger, controversy and hatred then beating Hillary Clinton in the general election.

In the first years of Trump’s tumultuous presidency, McCain was a thorn in his side, famously voting down an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act with a dramatic thumbs down. He died in August 2018, of brain cancer.

Three years later, Romney is a senator from Utah, the only member of his party to vote to convict Trump in both his impeachments, for seeking political dirt from Ukraine and for inciting the Capitol attack.

Palin is in court in New York, suing the New York Times over an opinion column she says linked her political rhetoric to a mass shooting, in a case which could have far-reaching implications for US libel law.

Cindy McCain has been censured by her state party for opposing Trump. Joe Biden, Obama’s vice-president who beat Trump in 2020, made her ambassador to the United Nations food agency.