The Character of a Great Man

There was a retrospective piece on John McCain earlier this month over on Slate, The Great McCain Story You've Probably Forgotten. This political season, it seems that people are looking for a President who can work across party lines, one that respects the other side and can transcend partisanship. Barack Obama has frequently claimed that mantle, but how do we reliably identify such a rare breed of politician when we see them? History has shown that we certainly can't trust what they say. When George W. Bush campaigned in 2000, he claimed famously to be "a uniter, not a divider." Look where that got us.

I think that there are three things to look for in identifying a true bipartisan who governs with principles rather than ideology:

1. Bipartisan legislative achievements
2. Key differences with the party base on some major issues
3. Strong friendships across party lines

McCain has worked on a number of bipartisan bills and cooperative efforts, such as McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and the "Gang of 14" to name a few. He also holds positions on immigration, global warming, campaign financing and the religious right that contradict Republican orthodoxy. In fact, idealogical extremists on the right like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity see John McCain as a traitor because of these views. Finally, it is well known that Senator McCain has a close friendship with independent Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, with whom he has sponsored many climate change bills.

All of this is fine, but what kind of man is he? I know the answer to that after I read about his friendship with Democrat Mo Udall, the senior Arizona congressman who took McCain under his wing. The Slate article highlights a profile written in 1997, years before McCain first ran for President. Udall was dying with Parkinson's disease in a veterans hospital:

A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain.