NOMINEE

McCain Draws On Biography To Make His Case

by Jennifer Skalka

Friday, Sept. 5, 2008


Emphasizing his faith and service to his country, John McCain accepted the Republican nomination for president Thursday night with "humility and confidence," assuring a packed crowd at the Xcel Energy Center that he, not Democratic rival Barack Obama, has the experience necessary to lead the nation in a time of war.

"Again and again, I've worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed," he told an audience of 18,000 on the fourth and final day of the Republican National Convention. "That's how I will govern as president. I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again. I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not."

McCain's 49-minute speech capped a true political resurrection. Just a year ago, his campaign, bankrupt and eclipsed by Republican rivals, was all but through. And the party's nomination, which McCain had sought and lost to a less experienced George W. Bush in 2000, appeared to have eluded him once more.

On Thursday, however, McCain banked his political future on a broad-brush recounting of his Vietnam service and his "maverick" reputation, not a series of specific policy proposals to cure an ailing national economy, the top issue of concern to voters. Despite intense Republican criticism of Obama for pushing his personal story and running a campaign that turns on "celebrity" and not leadership, McCain's address -- and the week's Republican convention storyline -- was heavy with talk of McCain's 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war.

"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's," McCain said. "I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency -- for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's."

Speaking earlier in the evening, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., echoed the convention's overarching theme: "John McCain knows freedom. He has fought for it. He has sacrificed for it."

But voter concerns have shifted since the Arizona senator's first White House bid, and his unyielding support for an unpopular and expensive war in Iraq -- started and relentlessly defended by an even more unpopular Republican president -- poses a direct challenge. Meanwhile, his push for a stalled proposal to overhaul the country's immigration policies alienated conservatives. And he has struggled to convince voters across the political spectrum that he is well-equipped to manage a flagging economy.

"It did not seem to me that he did enough to assuage voter concerns about the economy," said former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb. "His lack of specifics seem to be connected to genuine conservative beliefs about the limits of government. I believe Obama will retain a significant advantage in this area coming out of the convention because Senator McCain's approach to the economy does not seem significantly different than President Bush's."

Others saw the speech as an affirmation that McCain has broken with Bush's Republican Party to steer his own path -- on the economy and national security. Former Rep. Mickey Edwards, R-Okla., who is now a lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, said McCain used his address "to set his own course and make his campaign a call for belief in America's greatness and its possibilities."

"He used his own story as the basis for his commitment to service," Edwards said. "In many ways, it changed the emphasis of the campaign, talking not just about security and the most obvious national problems -- lost jobs, mortgage foreclosures, fuel prices -- but calling on people to feed the hungry, teach the illiterate, and generally turn to a life of service. He also couched his security credentials in a condemnation of war when it can be avoided."

To invigorate a Republican faithful suspicious of his devotion to their issues, McCain chose as his running mate a little-known first-term female governor from Alaska who opposes abortion rights and carries a reputation as a reformer. Speakers Thursday night pitched the duo -- McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin -- as the "maverick" ticket, extending McCain's longtime label to his 44-year-old pick for vice president. Palin, who addressed the convention Wednesday night to rave reviews, has sparked a new enthusiasm among conservatives for the Republican ticket.

"John has picked a reform-minded, hockey-mommin', basketball-shootin', moose-huntin', fly-fishin', pistol-packing mother of five for vice president," declared Cindy McCain, who was escorted onstage last night by the couple's seven children. "And as a fellow hockey mom myself and a Western conservative mother, I couldn't be prouder that John has shaken things up, as he usually does."

The nominee issued another challenge. McCain, who at 72 would be the nation's oldest first-term president, cautioned that he and Palin would challenge the nation's capitol to start fresh.

"Let me offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd: Change is coming," McCain said to wild applause.

McCain promised to double the child tax exemption from $3,500 to $7,000, cut business taxes and promote school choice. "We believe in low taxes; spending discipline, and open markets," McCain said. "We believe in rewarding hard work and risk-takers and letting people keep the fruits of their labor. We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don't legislate from the bench."

Obama spokesman Bill Burton criticized McCain for attempting to criticize the same Washington he's been a part of for more than two decades and continued the campaign's theme of tying McCain to Bush.

"Tonight, John McCain said that his party was elected to change Washington, but that they let Washington change them. He's right. He admonished the 'old, do-nothing crowd' in Washington, but ignored the fact that he's been part of that crowd for 26 years, opposing solutions on health care, energy, and education," Burton said. "He talked about bipartisanship, but didn't mention that he's been a Bush partisan 90 percent of the time, that he's run a Karl Rove campaign, and that he wants to continue this President's disastrous economic and foreign policies for another four years. With John McCain, it's more of the same."

Bush's flagging approval ratings have dogged McCain throughout the contest. Recent surveys show only about 3 in 10 Americans approve of the job Bush is doing. On billboards and bus stops in the Minneapolis-St.Paul area, the Democrats, intent on linking the two Republican leaders, are featuring a photograph of Bush and McCain embracing.

And a Diageo/Hotline survey [PDF] released this week shows McCain is struggling to convince voters that he is more in touch with the concerns of average Americans than Obama and that is better equipped to spark an economic rebound. Half of Americans said the economy was the top issue on their minds. When voters were asked who can manage the economy, meanwhile, Obama trumped McCain 48 percent to 40 percent.

McCain was interrupted early in his speech by a handful of hecklers who chanted "You can't win an occupation." One held a sign: "McCain Votes Against Vets." Their jeers were drowned out by delegates' chants of "U.S.A., U.S.A." McCain attempted to push on, but at one point the distraction forced a direct response.

"My friends, my dear friends, please don't be diverted by the ground noise and the static," he said. "... Americans want us to stop yelling at each other, OK?"

No matter the interruptions, delegates and convention-goers said they were pleased with their Republican ticket. Even some skeptics called McCain's personal story -- in which he touched several times on the theme of leadership -- moving, including those who had not come to the convention as his supporters.

"John McCain gets it. He gets how to lead," said Mary Ann Hanusa, the Iowa GOP Pottawattamie County chairwoman, who had backed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. "When I left home, I left a group of activists who were going to vote for John McCain. Now I've got a group of activists who are going to work to elect John McCain."

National Journal's James A. Barnes contributed to this story.

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