In my later college years, 2007 and 2008, you could say I was a hippy, not to be confused with the waxed mustached, cuffed jeans with suspender-wearing Hipsters of today. My shoulder-length hair and scrappy beard sparked many of my close confidants and nearly every member of my extended family to frequently tell me I was the spitting image of the classic portrait of Jesus — or Dave Grohl from the band Foo Fighters, take your pick.
Politically, I was a non-card carrying independent who liked to vote my conscience. But as I sat in my holey military-style coat — PBR in-hand — at the Deadwood in Iowa City during the height of the 2008 presidential election, I saw true honor unfold, and from all sources possible, on CNN.
It was an October 2018 town hall with then-Senator and Republican Party Presidential Nominee John McCain.
McCain was taking questions from prospective voters. A man in his mid-30s was handed the microphone and he said, “we’re scared of an Obama Presidency, and I’ll tell you why. ... I’m concerned about someone who is cohorts with domestic terrorists like (Bill) Ayers.”
Since his death earlier this month, the clip has resurfaced again near 100 times. For 22-year-old Mike Mendenhall, it was a poignant moment. McCain responded definitively by saying, “I have to tell you, he is a decent person — a person who you do not have to be scared of as President of the United States,” McCain said.
Later in that same town hall, McCain was again led to the defense of his political rival, this time from a woman questioning then-Sen. Barack Obama’s birthplace.
“I have to ask you a question,” the woman said. “I don’t trust Obama. I have read about him, and he’s not ... he’s not ... uh ... he’s an Arab.”
McCain grabbed the mic and continued his defense. “No, ma’am. No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, a citizen who I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That’s what this campaign is about.”
It would have been more politically expedient for McCain to give in to the divisiveness of the moment, rallied the crowds behind negative chants and conspiracy theories about his opponents’ “real” place of origin, but like the statesman he will go down to be, the senator stood above the rhetoric. He lost the election.
There was an honesty which came from McCain that does not exist just a short 10 years later. He’s not always been on the right side of history. McCain famously reversed course after the 2000 presidential election on his position over the Confederate Battle Flag’s place flying above the South Carolina statehouse. McCain admitted he should have publicly denounced the symbol’s presence during the race.
Here is McCain’s response as quoted April 20, 2000, in the Washington Post:
“As I admitted, I should have done this earlier when an honest answer could have affected me personally,” McCain said in his speech to the South Carolina Policy Council, a conservative think tank. “I did not do so for one reason alone. I feared that if I answered honestly, I could not win the South Carolina primary. So I chose to compromise my principles. I broke my promise to always tell the truth.”
The news cycle has moved on from McCain’s death, now focused on a deadly hurricane, an underground mutiny in the White House, anonymous New York Times op-eds and an investigative piece that has put President Donald Trump on the defensive, again. But for a brief few days, all eyes and hearts were on McCain and his legacy as a war hero, political maverick and the great compromiser. Few things other than the death of a great human being can bring that type of unity, if only for a brief moment.
Some called it the last act of political defiance when McCain asked both Obama and former President George W. Bush, the two men who denied him the presidency, to give eulogies at his funeral. Others say McCain was showing respect to his presidential opponents. Former President Obama said McCain was “getting the last laugh” by forcing him and George W. Bush to say something nice about him.
McCain may have had all those points in mind, but I believe it was about a show of unity in a time when it’s difficult to find any trace of it. In his final days, McCain wanted to show American citizens what makes this country so great — compromise, the ability to put aside our political difference to find common ground as Americans. To quote another legend we recently lost, R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Contact Mike Mendenhall at
mmendenhall@newtondailynews.com