For McCain for President: Phil Gramm

Why John McCain
He's a leader for our times.

BY PHIL GRAMM
Tuesday, February 20, 2007 12:01 a.m.

Four years ago I decided to quit while I was ahead and concluded my 24-year political career. When I left the Senate, I also left the public policy debate and talking-head role to those actually in the arena. However, because I believe that the 2008 presidential election will be the most important election since 1980, I have decided to rejoin the national debate and exercise my right as a private citizen to express a strongly held opinion about who should be elected, and why.

When the poet Edwin Markham wrote "Lincoln, the Man of the People," he spoke of the gathering crisis and the man sent to "meet the mortal need." For Markham, the gathering crisis was the great Civil War, and the man sent to meet the mortal need was Abraham Lincoln.

Today's mortal need is for a leader who trusts our people enough to tell them the truth about the festering domestic problems that have been swept under the rug for a quarter-century. We need a president who can face up to these problems even as he leads an increasingly reluctant country in a war against a dangerous enemy that will follow us home from any battlefield on which we are defeated.

Where is such a leader to be found? American history gives us a clue where to look: When the times have required great leaders in the past, they seem to have been there all the while, just waiting to be called. John Adams wrote in his diary in 1774 that "We have not Men, fit for the Times. We are deficient in Genius, in Education, in Travel, in Fortune--in every Thing. I feel unutterable Anxiety."

Yet, at that very moment, the greatest assemblage of leadership the world has ever known was emerging all around him. We seem, for some reason, to be able to see greatness only in the rearview mirror.

I believe the man we need to meet the mortal need today is here. He is experienced, but has not lost his common sense or his ability to be outraged. His conservatism is not the result of a studied philosophy, but of common sense and personal observation. His name is John McCain. He might not be the right president for all times, but he is the right president for these times.

Today we have an unnecessary budget deficit, the result of wanton waste and dishonesty. John McCain has been a lonely but clarion voice on this issue: "Bills that perpetuate wasteful spending should be vetoed," he says. "Not some of them, all of them. The numbers should shock us; indifference to them should shame us."

This is not a concern he discovered when he decided to run for president. I first heard him say these things when we served together in the House many years ago. To ask if he would really take on the spending establishment that runs Congress is to ask if water will wet, if fire will burn. If you want to end the spending spree in Washington, he is your man.

John McCain understands instinctively that just as "in war, there is no substitute for victory, in peace, there is no substitute for growth." He believes that "the strength of our economy promotes freedom not just at home but in every distant corner of our planet. End growth in America and the lights start to go out all over the world."

The success of the Reagan program taught Sen. McCain that growth requires responsible, limited government and ever-expanding freedom. As he has said, "The answer to deficits is not to raise taxes or repeal the [Bush] tax cuts but to restrain our spending habit. If the federal government can not be funded by current revenues then we must reduce its size."

Others tell us that pigs have wings and we can have it all: more spending, more government, lower taxes and more freedom. John McCain's says that "tax cuts work best when accompanied by lower spending." Yes, he understands that cutting taxes creates the incentive to work, save and invest; and that sometimes you have to cut taxes first to get the economy going and then control spending. But in his common-sense view, as in the immutable laws that govern our world, you can't let government spend it and let the taxpayer keep it for very long. Nothing endangers the Bush tax cuts today as much as the spending orgy that the very proponents of those tax cuts allowed to occur.

Sen. McCain stands tall, and often alone, in his support for free trade against special interests and against the politicians who would risk destroying our economy to win an election. His view is straightforward and ratified by all our national experience: "Free trade is the key to economic growth, and a key to U.S. economic success. We need to stand up for free trade with no ifs, ands or buts about it. We let free trade and globalization be politicized at our own peril."

But he is not blind or callous to the real costs imposed on the few as trade and globalization create prosperity for the many. In his view, "We must remain committed to education, retraining and help for displaced workers, all the while reminding ourselves that our ability to change is a great strength of our nation." But, he adds, "We cannot let fear and the appeals of protectionism lead us backwards."

John McCain is one of the few politicians in America who consistently levels with us about the mounting insolvency of Social Security and Medicare. "We have made promises that we cannot keep. Some day the government will be forced to make dramatic cuts in these programs, or crippling increases in taxes on workers or both." For Sen. McCain, salvaging the social safety net and saving the economy means making the hard choices now to right the current system for those already in it, and building a new system for future workers based on real investments, not empty promises.

Being honest about Social Security and Medicare is a necessary but not sufficient condition for fixing a broken system. Think for a moment about all the possible candidates running for president next year, and then ask yourself this question: Who else has shown any ability to reach across the party divide and build a bipartisan consensus? Who else could lead worried Americans and shame a reluctant Congress into action? Who else would stay on course with political flak exploding all around him, and his political life hanging in the balance? The easy answer is--no one but John McCain.

Which candidate is best equipped to lead an America at war, with battle lines raging in far away places and on Main Street, where you live? It is in meeting this mortal need more than any other that John McCain stands head and shoulders above the alternatives. Only he has the life experience to know what is really entailed in sending young men and women into combat. With a son at Annapolis and a son in the Marine Corps, he still has plenty of "skin in the game." His life experience and intimate knowledge of defense and foreign policy give Sen. McCain moral authority.

In a democracy, power is useless unless you can use it; what candidate would have more credibility in using power and rallying public support for a long and difficult struggle? Who would be more effective than John McCain in using American military power in its highest and best use--the deterrence of adversaries? A president--who knows war and has the authority to unite our people to make war when we must--can thwart enemies, unite friends and win peace. John McCain would be that president.

Greatness seems to visit those who know themselves, what they believe in and why. Abraham Lincoln knew those things. The savior of the union was a protectionist and a proponent of big government projects--and in the 1850s or 1870s he might have made an average or poor president. But in 1860, Lincoln was the right man for that moment. He was on a mission to save the union, and he did.

The great leader of my lifetime was Ronald Reagan. He knew what he believed in and what he needed to do in 1980, and he meant to do it. He didn't run for the glory of being president; he ran to change America and the world. He didn't just want to hold the office; he wanted to use it.

Over the years there have been issues where I have differed with Sen. McCain. But as I look at the gathering storm that will challenge the next president and imperil our country, not one of those issues is relevant to the task ahead. The presidency is a terrible thing to waste. I believe that if the American people make him president, John McCain won't waste it.

Mr. Gramm is a former U.S. senator from Texas.

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