McCain for the GOP

Arizona Sen. John McCain represents the Republican Party's best hope for victory in November, and the best opportunity for the country to have an informed, constructive presidential election.

More importantly, the breadth of McCain's life experience and public service give him the capacity and insight to move in new directions. The credibility to make a shift is especially important on foreign policy and the Iraq war.This quality goes deeper than a reputation as a maverick with a cantankerous independent streak that drives some in his party to distraction.

McCain has the political résumé and personal courage to change his mind. For all his supportive votes and rhetoric on Iraq, he would have the easiest time of any candidate to engineer a reversal of policy.

McCain the Annapolis graduate, McCain the naval aviator, McCain the prisoner of war does not carry the burden of heavily footnoted, nuanced stances on national security and defense policy. He opposes the use of torture by Americans and would close the prison at Guantánamo. Against years of grotesque double-talk from administration hacks, McCain does not equivocate.

For him to announce a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq would carry an imprimatur others cannot produce. He also understands both the political and logistical complexities of making it happen.

After seven years of smirking, feckless leadership from President George Bush, the country is ready for straight talk. One does not have to agree with McCain 100 percent — we certainly do not — to sense the ability and honesty the nation craves.

McCain has moved around the political chessboard. He was first elected to Congress in 1982, and after Sen. Barry Goldwater retired, he moved to the Senate. He has been a familiar face in presidential campaigns since 1998, when he formed his first exploratory committee.

His penchant to stray from the GOP herd is legendary, and explains his ability to attract independent voters and Reagan Democrats. McCain's appeal across party lines emboldens wishful thinkers about a Republican victory in November.

Last summer, his campaign broke down with staff and fundraising problems. His extraordinary rebound benefited from the public's perception of a thin GOP field. A solid winner in Florida, he is ahead in California, Super Tuesday's grand prize.

His political base is broad because his world view defies the rigor mortis of most party positions. Certainly, he has lapses, with odd and retracted remarks about America's essence as a Christian nation.

McCain leads in California in part because his stand on immigration provides a pathway to legal status for undocumented workers and their families. He has voted for a proposed fence on the U.S.-Mexico border that so far is more rhetorical device than physical barrier.

He labored on campaign-finance reform for more than a decade with mixed results, but won stricter reporting on contacts with lobbyists when stronger measures were stymied by his Republican colleagues.

McCain is a consistent vote against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A lonely voice on climate-change issues within his party, he supports "cap and trade" legislation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

For a country exhausted by Karl Rove's politics of divide and conquer, McCain's record of bipartisanship transcends mere tactical expediency. In 2002, veteran journalist David Broder tallied McCain's key alliances with Democrats: Russ Feingold on campaign finance, John Edwards and Ted Kennedy on patients' rights, Joe Lieberman on gun-show loopholes, John Kerry on fuel-efficiency standards and Evan Bayh on national service.

He is anti-abortion, with exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the mother's life — a view distinct from his support for stem-cell and fetal-tissue research.

McCain defies the shibboleths used to identify those Republicans who stand to lose the other half of Congress and the White House next November.

John McCain's campaign is not about undefined change, but a return to classic values: honesty, integrity and competence.