My Friend John McCain
MidWeek columnist Jerry Coffee and John McCain have remained close friends since they were POWs in Viet -nam. Extra coverstory by Susan Page
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you!”
“OK, OK, I’m John McCain.” “John McCain!” she gushed, rushing to hug his neck. “You’re the only Republican I’d ever vote for.”
On that same visit he was a guest of Gov. Linda Lingle at a Washington
Place reception. When we picked him up at his hotel, he was very proud of his crisp, new aloha shirt just purchased in the hotel shop to ensure he would be in proper Hawaiian attire.
At that same reception, Brennon Morioka, state transportation director, was impressed by McCain’s dedication to national security: “It was clear to me the senator understands both Hawaii’s vulnerability and Hawaii’s importance as the nation’s bastion of defense in the Pacific.”
In 2004, Gov. Lingle came to know the senator while they campaigned together for President Bush.
“I’m very confident Sen. McCain ... can win the election. It’s about how you would react as president, how you would lead, as opposed to where you were born and where you went to school.”
After I had declared my candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 2006, Susan and I called on John in his Washington Office to seek his advice. He greeted us warmly, “Dammit, Coffee, get off my lawn!” But later, on a more serious note, he said, “Jerry, as distasteful as it may be, if you are going to run successfully, you have to ask people for money.”
I replied, “OK, Senator, please give me $5,000 from your PAC.”
“Geeez, you’re a fast learner,” he said, laughing, and slapping me on the shoulder. I got the check within a week.
With few exceptions, John has fulfilled his promise to Cindy and the children to be home in Phoenix every weekend. The family of seven children, as one biographer put it, “spans four decades, two marriages, numerous states and a broad swath of the political spectrum.”
Of the four boys, Andy, 46, is a corporate vice president. Doug, 49, is an ex-Navy pilot now working as an airline pilot. Jimmy, 20, is a Marine recently returned from Iraq. Jack, 22, is the fourth McCain generation attending the U.S. Naval Academy.
Of the three girls, Sydney, 42, is in the music business. Meghan, 24, helps her father on the campaign trail. Bridget, 16, adopted daughter from Bangladesh, is in high school.
John is quick to speak of his pride in his children, yet very protective of their privacy. Despite all they’ve been through with their father’s military and political careers, they all remain close and speak of him in endearing terms.
Although John was raised an Episcopalian, the McCain family has attended the North Phoenix Baptist Church for years. They contribute generously to charities, more than $300,000 over the past two years.
In 1991, John opposed the pay increases members of Congress approved for themselves and pledged not to accept a raise. Since then he has donated the total sum of those increases to charity. His income from books also goes to charity. Christmas of 2003, the McCains opened their show-place home in Phoenix to the public for $10 a head, raising more than $10,000 for a school in need.
Over the years my friend John McCain has mellowed and, without lowering his standards, has become more forgiving.
After all, it was largely through his bipartisan support that the Clinton administration was able to establish diplomatic and economic relations with communist Vietnam.
As a man of faith, family, generosity, independence and patriotism, McCain has nothing to prove. He is motivated solely by his belief - as he puts it - “in the fulfillment of serving a cause greater than one’s self.”
The correctness of his conservative yet bipartisan record in the Senate may
be debatable, but some things about him are not. No man could love his country more, care more about preserving the Judeo-Christian values upon which it is founded, nor lived a more dedicated life - short of giving it - to its service. And that is what will inform the policies of his presidency.
How could I have known back in 1971 that John McCain may be “the boss of me” yet?
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