Question: What position did McCain serve both before and after running for President in 2008? Passage 1:Beginning with the 2000 election, the status of the Missouri bellwether came into question. Between 1904 and 2004, Missouri was carried by the victor of each presidential election, with the exception of 1956. Though Bush won the presidency in the 2000 election through the Electoral College, he lost the national popular vote. The 2000 election was unique because this was the first time in over a century where the popular vote winner lost the general election. (In 1888, Missouri voted for Grover Cleveland, the incumbent Democrat, who lost to Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison). Thus, controversy exists as to whether or not Missouri accurately predicted victor in this election. In the subsequent election, Missouri voted for George W. Bush, who this time won both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Missouri has voted reliably Republican since 2000. The state voted for John McCain in 2008, and for Mitt Romney in 2012, both of whom lost the general election to Barack Obama. The controversy is further complicated by the 2016 presidential election, where Missouri voted for Donald Trump by a landslide, while Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly three million votes, but like in 2000, Trump won the Electoral College and became 45th President of the United States. Like 2000, political scientists have differing opinions on whether or not Missouri accurately predicted the victor, and even if Missouri is still a bellwether state at all.
 Passage 2:Minimal music is a form of art music that employs limited or minimal musical materials. In the Western art music tradition, the American composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass are credited with being among the first to develop compositional techniques that exploit a minimal approach. It originated in the New York Downtown scene of the 1960s and was initially viewed as a form of experimental music called the New York Hypnotic School. As an aesthetic, it is marked by a non-narrative, non-teleological, and non-representational conception of a work in progress, and represents a new approach to the activity of listening to music by focusing on the internal processes of the music, which lack goals or motion toward those goals. Prominent features of the technique include consonant harmony, hypnotic rhythmic pulses or steady drones, stasis or gradual transformation, and often reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units such as figures, motifs, and cells. It may include features such as additive process and phase shifting. Phase-shifting leads to what has been termed phase music. Minimal compositions that rely heavily on process techniques that follow strict rules are usually described as process music.
 Passage 3:In 1950, Yost posted career-highs with a .295 batting average and a .440 on-base percentage. In 1951 he led the American League with 36 doubles and produced a career-high 65 runs batted in. He earned a place as a reserve player for the American League team in the 1952 All-Star Game. Between August 30, 1949 and May 11, 1955, Yost played in 829 consecutive games for the Senators, the ninth longest consecutive game streak in major league history. Yost's home run totals were diminished by having to play his home games in Washington's cavernous Griffith Stadium. Between 1944 and 1953, he hit only 3 home runs at home while hitting 52 home runs on the road.

Output: 1