With U.S. flags flapping briskly behind him at a windy Navy-Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis, Sen. John McCain recalled his “misspent youth” at the Naval Academy and talked about the values of citizenship and public service, with barely a mention of his campaign for president.
Talking to a small crowd of invited guests, the presumptive Republican nominee spoke about his flaws and lack of discipline at the academy, attended by his father and grandfather, both admirals.
He said he built up an “impressive catalog of demerits” earning him so much punishment that he “marched enough extra duty to take me to Baltimore and back 17 times.”
With only veiled references to his four years as a downed Navy pilot in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp, McCain said he found his life?s mission in the word “citizenship.”
“My accomplishments are more a testament to my country ? a land of opportunity ? than they are to me,” McCain said.
Citizenship is practiced by all kinds of civic and charitable groups, and is “defined by countless acts of love, courage and selflessness,” he said.
As he often has on his year-long quest for the presidency a second time, McCain talked about “sacrifice for a cause greater than yourself.”
“Love of country is another way of saying love of your fellow countrymen,” the candidate said. “If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you?re disappointed with the acts of government, join its ranks and work to correct them.”
The crowd of about 150 was made up mostly of people who had known the Arizona senator for decades.
But Anne Arundel Council Chairman Cathy Vitale also attended, and she was not expecting to be wowed by his speech.
“I think we got a wonderful insight into who John McCain is as a person, a candidate for president,” she said
“That?s why I think Maryland is a possibility state,” she added, and McCain could make Maryland “red, white and blue.”
The Democratic Party was predictably critical.
“John McCain can?t dismiss his campaign?s shortcomings or his own flip-flops with a nostalgic campaign tour designed primarily to reconnect himself to his own party,” said Quincey Gamble, executive director of the state Democratic Party. He said McCain represented a continuation of President Bush?s policies on the Iraq war, the economy and health care.
McCain started the day by joining in the Pledge of Allegiance at Chick and Ruth?s Deli on Main Street in Annapolis, a daily routine at the restaurant.
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