My Grandmother and John McCain

Just to give you a sense of how powerful the narrative of John McCain's visit to Jerry Falwell's Liberty University truly was, I offer this anecdote.

I made the traditional Mother's Day call to my grandmother, who lives in the coal-mining region of Johnstown, PA. Jack Murtha is her Congressman. She fits with where a lot of the country is at: down the middle, but not really paying a lot of attention to politics. When my grandfather died she remarried a nice gentleman who has Fox News playing in their house pretty much all day long.

So it surprised me in the course of this call when she suddenly said, "So what is it with John McCain going to Jerry Falwell's college? I didn't think he was political like that! This is disgusting!"

I really didn't know what to say. For a lot of America that isn't plugged in to the say-one-thing, do-another McCain myth and how it's evolved over the years, he's the sensible Republican that is strong on defense but would respect civil liberties, and a moderate on social issues. This isn't true, of course, but that's the image many have of him. This Falwell thing just blows that out of the water, and to most Americans, it doesn't matter what he said.

Pericles has a very good synopsis of the speech, and while I agree to an extent, I don't see the rhetoric matching the reality. Here's an excerpt of the rhetoric:

Ours is a noisy, contentious society, and always has been, for we love our liberties much. And among those liberties we love most, particularly so when we are young, is our right to self-expression. That passion for self-expression sometimes overwhelms our civility, and our presumption that those with whom we have strong disagreements, wrong as they might be, believe that they, too, are answering the demands of their conscience [...]

We have our disagreements, we Americans. We contend regularly and enthusiastically over many questions: over the size and purposes of our government; over the social responsibilities we accept in accord with the dictates of our conscience and our faithfulness to the God we pray to; over our role in the world and how to defend our security interests and values in places where they are threatened. These are important questions; worth arguing about. We should contend over them with one another. It is more than appropriate, it is necessary that even in times of crisis, especially in times of crisis, we fight among ourselves for the things we believe in. It is not just our right, but our civic and moral obligation.

I didn't see McCain being so civil when he mocked and chided Barack Obama earlier this year for essentially disagreeing with him about how best to undertake lobbying reform. Or when he asked his supporters in the Republican straw poll at the SRLC to write in the President's name because "For the next three years, with our country at war, he’s our president and the only one who needs our support today." That doesn't sound like someone who welcomes disagreement and tolerance.

But none of this really matters. It's the act of going to the college of the man who blamed gays, feminists and the ACLU for 9/11 that was a dagger to the heart for the center of the country. My grandmother, my little 80 year-old grandmother, just washed her hands of John McCain. "I guess I'll have to vote for Hillary then." As if those are the only two choices, but that's another post.

McCain took a gamble he needed to take to win the Republican nomination. But if this anecdote was played out throughout the rest of the country, that gamble may have cost him a shot at the Presidency.