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Military culture, pragmatism shape McCain

John McCain's military experience and Senate record show a presidential candidate who values integrity and getting things done.

from the May 19, 2008 edition

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To some McCain observers, the senator's military career goes a long way toward explaining how he approaches policy.

"When you come from a military background, I think you're less ideological, less partisan," says Margaret Kenski, a Republican pollster based in Tucson, Ariz. "It's a career that's very much task-oriented, getting a vital job done."

McCain himself, in a Monitor interview last fall, touted the apolitical traditions of the military. "I don't think my father ever voted," he said. "Generally speaking, most military officers try to keep a very big separation between their military duties and the political side."

Indeed, the last career military man to serve as president, five-star general and war hero Dwight Eisenhower, had no political affiliation during his long service. He was recruited by both major parties to run for president in 1948, but declined. In 1952, a Republican "Draft Eisenhower" movement succeeded.

From Navy man to congressman

For McCain, the transition from military to political life was more deliberate. In 1977, his flying days over, McCain was assigned to be the Navy's liaison to the Senate, a position his father once held. According to Timberg, McCain got "the classic Potomac fever." The senators, likewise, took to the irreverent military officer with the extraordinary back story.

"Suddenly, he's with people generally his age – the Bill Cohens, Gary Harts [then senators] – and he finds out that he really likes this stuff," says Timberg. "He not only likes it, but he says, 'Hey, I can do this, and I bet I can do it well.' At that point, I think everything starts to move in one direction."

By the time McCain arrived in Washington, his personal life was in transition. His marriage was already falling apart – McCain accepts the blame – when he met and fell for the young, beautiful daughter of a wealthy businessman from Phoenix. In early 1981, McCain retired from the Navy, and he and his new wife, Cindy, settled in Arizona. As if by design, the congressman from the district near Phoenix suddenly retired, and McCain won the seat. Four years later, Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater – the godfather of Republican conservatism, whom McCain had gotten to know during his Navy liaison days – retired and McCain easily succeeded him.

In McCain's House and early Senate years, conservatives considered him "an upcoming conservative hero and a conservative stalwart in Congress," says David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU). Then in the late 1990s, McCain began to "move left," Mr. Keene says.

While McCain's lifetime ACU rating of 82 percent puts him within the conservative range (defined as 80 or above), that masks his annual scores of the past 10 years, which routinely dipped below 80, sometimes into the 60s. The nonpartisan National Journal magazine, in its member rankings, also found that McCain has moved toward the center since the mid-'90s, when the GOP took control of the Senate. When Mr. Bush became president, having defeated McCain in a contentious nomination battle, hard feelings were evident as McCain voted often against his positions.

McCain's presumptive nomination – made possible only because Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee split the conservative vote – has left some conservatives deeply dissatisfied.

And there's a larger problem: This presidential race will be fought in the center, and so McCain must walk an ideological tightrope, trying to convince the right that he really is conservative – or at least conservative enough – while going after the moderate and independent voters who may be more appreciative of his forays off the Republican reservation.

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