A pledge of bipartisanship
McCain hits GOP lapses, vows end to old ways in Washington
ST. PAUL - Senator John McCain, returning to the themes that saved his once flailing presidential quest, last night accepted the Republican nomination with a promise to shake up Washington with a bipartisan strategy and patriotic flair, warning political stalwarts that "change is coming."
"You know, I've been called a maverick, someone who marches to the beat of his own drum. Sometimes it's meant as a compliment, and sometimes it's not," McCain told the closing session of the Republican National Convention. "What it really means is I understand who I work for. I don't work for a party. I don't work for a special interest. I don't work for myself. I work for you."
Standing at the end of a runway - a T-shaped stage shaped like a fashion catwalk - McCain distanced himself from the less popular members of his party, blaming unnamed Republicans for taking the party away from its core principles.
"We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger," McCain said, making an implicit reference to scandals involving former GOP House members and the huge government programs approved under President Bush.
"We're going to change that. The party of Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan is going to get back to basics," McCain said.
McCain spoke movingly about his years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and how it changed him from a selfish and brash young man to a mature "servant" of his country. "I've never lived a day, in good times or in bad, that I don't thank God for that privilege," he said.
The Arizona senator's speech was interrupted several times by protesters, including a man wearing a T-shirt that said, "Iraq Veterans Against the War," and waving a banner that read, "You Can't Win a War with an Occupation." At least two members of an antiwar group called "Code Pink" were carried out by security officers, and the boisterous crowd drowned out any protest efforts with a deafening chant of "USA! USA!"
McCain appeared unrattled by the demonstrations. "My dear friends, please, please don't be diverted by the crowd noise and the static," McCain said, drawing a chuckle from the crowd of approximately 25,000 who filled St. Paul's
McCain paid polite homage to his Democratic opponent, Barack Obama, telling him that "you have my respect and my admiration." Keeping to his theme of reconciliation, McCain avoided the skewering of Obama earlier in the week by other GOP officials, including his new running mate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.
But McCain also pointedly laid out a vision of an Obama-led America that he said would include higher taxes, labor union-controlled education policy, and a health care system run by "bureaucrats."
And while Obama captured the Democratic nomination with a message of change and bipartisan cooperation, McCain insisted he was the better man to accomplish those goals.
"Again and again, I've worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. 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 said, underscoring an evolving GOP attack against Obama as a partisan as well as inexperienced lawmaker.
The Obama campaign said McCain's pledge of bipartisanship rang hollow. "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 healthcare, energy, and education," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
Palin also has limited political experience, having served as a council member and then mayor of a small town before becoming governor of the nation's third least-populated state 20 months ago. Palin wowed the conventioneers Wednesday night with a speech that skewered Obama and underlined her "hockey mom" background.
McCain lauded Palin as a champion of the reforms he has promised to bring to the federal government.
"I'm very proud to have introduced our next vice president to the country. But I can't wait until I introduce her to Washington," McCain said with a mischievous grin on his face. "And let me just offer an advance warning to the old, big spending, do nothing, me-first, country-second crowd: Change is coming," said McCain, a 26-year veteran of Washington politics.
McCain last night was faced with the task not only of making as vivid an impression as Obama did, but also of delivering an address that would provoke at least as much enthusiasm as Republicans showered on Palin Wednesday night.
McCain - entering the stage in front a large screen with a huge, waving American flag that recalled a famous scene from the movie "Patton," with George C. Scott playing the World War II general - won a less giddy but equally approving response as he addressed the crowd. Some of the loudest applause erupted when McCain mentioned his unstinting support for the Iraq war as well as his own military experience.
"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. 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," McCain said.
"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."
The speech marked for McCain a milestone in a long and tortuous fight for the nomination. Virtually written off as a serious contender one year ago, the cash-strapped Arizona senator retooled his campaign and worked to burnish his reputation as a maverick during his 22 years in the Senate and four in the House of Representatives.
"He reverted to doing what he does best," said Dan Schnur, a former GOP consultant who is now director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. "Every time John McCain forgets to be a maverick, he gets in trouble. When his campaign was going bankrupt last summer, he finally decided an establishment campaign wasn't doing any good."
But while McCain's rogue reputation and independent message propelled him to victory in the GOP primaries, he continued to struggle to win over the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
McCain's support of embryonic stem cell research and rejection of anti-gay marriage legislation angered social conservatives. His early support of an immigration reform package infuriated immigration hard-liners. McCain's authorship of a campaign finance reform package aggravated conservative activists who wanted to push their agendas without constraints.
But with an eye on the presidency, McCain began wooing the same social conservatives he once disparaged. In mid-2006, McCain spoke at Christian evangelical leader Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, despite having previously referred to Falwell as one of a group of "agents of intolerance."
Last year, McCain backed away from efforts to pass a bipartisan immigration package, saying he wanted to secure the borders before dealing with the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the United States.
And McCain's signature campaign finance legislation known as "McCain-Feingold" for its chief sponsors barely rates a mention on McCain's presidential campaign website.
Conservatives were thrilled with McCain's outreach to the right wing of his party by picking Palin as his running mate.
The McCain campaign also hopes that Palin will appeal to swing voters in small-town America, and the duo will appear today in Cedarburg, Wis. 