From the Wall Street Journal, “Why McCain Still Has a Chance to Win” by Peter Robinson Forget the somewhat off-key title, which I would wager Robinson had nothing to do with. (That’s how it goes when you contribute op-eds to major dailies – trust me.) You’ll love this column, as it more clearly articulates the differences between Barack Obama and John McCain than anything I can recall reading. It also offers McCain some free advice in advance of his Thursday night speech which had better be pretty darn good:
The man is a patriot. Grasp that and you have grasped John McCain. Refusing 40 years ago to accept early release from his imprisonment in the Hanoi Hilton and running for president today — both are of a piece. Seen in this light, even Mr. McCain’s shortcomings make a certain kind of sense. McCain-Feingold? Bad legislation. But you can almost understand why he backed it. Mr. McCain sees the money sloshing around Washington as an insult to America — and he takes such insults personally. Patriot though he is, Mr. McCain is too imbued with the military ethic (which of course eschews ostentatious displays) to trumpet his patriotism. And this brings me back to the question with which I started. To place himself in the company of President Reagan, I believe, Mr. McCain need only overcome his inhibitions for an hour, using his acceptance speech on Thursday night to tell the American people about his feelings for this Republic. Between his relief efforts for the victims of Gustav and the fund raising for the GOP that falls to him as the new leader of the party, Mr. McCain might simply sit down for a few moments today or tomorrow, ponder the following quotation, then holler to his speechwriters to sit down and take notes while he renders the ideas it conveys into his own words. “I have always believed,” said Ronald Reagan, “that there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage.” Mr. Obama may be able to offer voters all the attractions of high rhetoric, but Mr. McCain can offer something else: an uncomplicated love of country.
