For McCain, a different focus on family

MERIDIAN, Miss. -- Instead of mining his "martial heritage" for anecdotes about military ancestors who can be portrayed as likeable if dutiful scoundrels -- ramblers and gamblers, rounders and bounders, as it might be put in local parlance -- John McCain today focused on family as a conservative institution that demanded government support.

"The family I was born to, and the family I am blessed with now, made me the
man I am, and instilled in me a deep and abiding respect for the social institution that wields the greatest influence in the formation of our individual character and the character of our society," McCain said downtown theatre here, on the first stop of a week-long tour designed to reintroduce his biography to the electorate.

On the surface, little was new in McCain’s speech. Much of his family's military history was exhaustively recounted in similar language in a decade-old memoir, "Faith of My Fathers." Policy prescriptions for government to help families were all staples of his stump speech: offering school choice, fighting Internet predators, and modernizing federal unemployment programs.

Yet the speech did seem to find a new role for the institution of the family in the McCain cosmology. McCain rarely speaks in modern-conservative tones of family as a proto-religious institution, but instead as a proxy for public service, the channel through which standards of duty and honor are pulled forward through the generations. The faith of McCain's father and grandfather, both Navy admirals, was a secular one; for McCain, connecting with them was indistinguishable from connecting with their idea of America.

"I may have been raised in a time when government did not dare to assume the responsibilities of parents," McCain said. "I am a father in a time when parents worry that threats to their children’s well-being are proliferating and undermining the values they have worked to impart to them."

Riding over to the event, McCain shared nostalgia for that earlier time, recalling the stiff drink Admiral William Halsey gave him as a 15-year old and the rough and rowdy days he spent in Meridian as a young flight instructor.

"We worked very hard, but we also played very hard. We were young, healthy, enjoyed life -- good social life, interesting social life, a lot of southern hospitality," McCain said, employing favorite euphemisms for experiences that contributed little to the formation of society’s character.