by John McCain
America has made a greater contribution than any other nation to an international order that has liberated more people from tyranny and poverty than ever before in history. We have been the greatest example, the greatest supporter, and the greatest defender of that order. We aren’t afraid. We don’t covet other people’s land and wealth. We don’t hide behind walls. We breach them. We are a blessing to humanity.
What greater cause could we hope to serve than helping keep America the strong, aspiring, inspirational beacon of liberty and defender of the dignity of all human beings and their right to freedom and equal justice? That is the cause that binds us and is so much more powerful and worthy than the small differences that divide us.
What a great honor and extraordinary opportunity it is to serve in this body. It’s a privilege to serve with all of you. I mean it. Many of you have reached out in the last few days with your concern and your prayers, and it means a lot to me. It really does. I’ve had so many people say such nice things about me recently that I think some of you must have me confused with someone else. I appreciate it, though, every word, even if much of it isn’t deserved.
I’ll be here for a few days, I hope managing the floor debate on the defense authorization bill, which, I’m proud to say, is again a product of bipartisan cooperation and trust among the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
After that, I’m going home for a while to treat my illness. I have every intention of returning here and giving many of you cause to regret all the nice things you said about me. And, I hope, to impress on you again that it is an honor to serve the American people in your company.
Thank you, fellow senators.
I remained on the Senate floor for a long while after my speech. Chuck Schumer spoke after me quite emotionally. Most of the senators present came up to me to say a few words, almost as if they were in a receiving line. They welcomed me back, offered their best wishes and prayers, complimented my remarks. Some were in tears, which was hard to see. At one time or another I had argued with every single one of them, and I’m certain I had offended more than a few of them. Their kindness to me in a difficult hour made my personal situation easier to accept. I mean that, and I hope they know that. Their concern and the generous regard they offered for the message I had delivered and for the messenger himself was more than just encouragement. It was an assurance that I meant something to the institution that means a great deal to me, that I have been of use there.
The next two days were busy with phone calls and meetings. Much of my time was spent thanking well-wishers. But a vote on a Republican Obamacare alternative was expected to occur late Thursday night, and I spent many hours trading intelligence about its likely contents, being lobbied by Republican and Democratic colleagues to support or oppose whatever proposal came to a vote, and seeking assurances from leadership that whatever happened with the health care bill, debate on the defense authorization bill, which I would manage, would be the next item on the calendar. As I mentioned, I take pride in the Armed Services Committee’s track record in reporting out our bill every year and getting it passed with bipartisan majorities. I wanted very much to see it finished before I began cancer treatment. I tried to work out issues various colleagues had with the bill, and get an approximate number of the amendments likely to be offered to it, and a sense of which ones I could accept and which ones I would have to oppose. I didn’t want to leave unfinished business behind when my return to the Senate was uncertain. Of course, the other members of the committee, who work closely together in a mostly nonpartisan way would have managed the bill on the floor in my absence quite competently. But I enjoy doing it and because I’m less abashed about pestering colleagues to move along, I can usually get the bill to final passage quicker than others can.
In my last Republican primary in 2016, my opponent accused me of being that lowest of characters in Washington, one of the wretches who lack the fortitude to disdain compromises and remain reliably useless at governing the country. “He’s a champion of compromise,” she warned. Yikes! What horrible transgressions might I yet be capable of committing were the voters of Arizona to send me back to Washington with another six-year mandate to help govern the country?
Well, they did send me back. And you’re damn right, I’m a champion of compromise in the governance of a country of 325 million opinionated, quarrelsome, vociferous souls. There is no other way to govern an open society, or more precisely, to govern it effectively. Principled compromises aren’t unicorns. They can be found when we put political advantage slightly second to the problem we’re trying to solve. The health care sector represents a sixth of our economy. I think it appropriate we try to find, if not a consensus on major changes to it, at least bipartisan agreement on how to incrementally improve it. Muddling through, hashing out policy agreements that thrill no one, but are acceptable to most is a useful achievement in a republic. Maybe “champion” is too grand a designation for the believers in these more mundane pursuits. Perhaps practical problem solving is a more appropriate description of the only governing approach that works in our system whatever your political philosophy. There are still plenty of people in both houses of Congress who recognize that to govern is to compromise, but they need reinforcements.
Paradoxically, voters who detest Washington because all we do is argue and never get anything done for them frequently vote for candidates who are the most adamant in their assurances that they will never ever compromise with those bastards in the other party. Instead they complain about Senate rules that don’t let them command obedience from the opposition; or the court that ruled some foolish executive order unconstitutional; or the fake news that’s in the other side’s back pocket; or unelected bureaucrats who won’t follow orders; or foreign governments that won’t be governed by us; or any handy entity they can blame for their failure to get anything done despite the moral superiority of their my-way-or-the-highway approach. When they eventually quit or lose an election and return from whence they came, they leave little behind but the memory of an impediment to the country’s progress. Yes, I’d rather have a few more problem solvers than purists in Washington. Their zeal may be commendable, but not, as it usually happens, terribly productive.
There are a lot of contributing factors to the gridlock that frustrates so many. Chief among them is how much more polarized we are as a society. We are secluding ourselves in ideological ghettos. We don’t have to debate rationally or even be exposed to ideas that contradict ours. We have our own news sources. We exchange ideas mostly or exclusively with people who agree with us, and troll those who don’t. Increasingly, we have our own facts to reinforce our convictions and any empirical evidence that disputes them is branded as “fake.” That’s a social trend that is going to be very hard to turn around given the prevalence in our daily lives of media and communications technologies that enable it. It will require a persistent effort to identify and insist on what is objectively true and what isn’t by the press, by media companies, by honest people in public life, and by broadly popular figures in all kinds of professions, business, sports, entertainment, who know that there is more to moving the country forward than winning an argument or an election. We have to recover our sense that we’re part of a community that’s larger than our political cohort, that we all, despite our disagreements, have shared interests and values.
That requires, paradoxically, taking politics more and less seriously. If you’re alarmed by our descent into all-consuming partisanship, by the fact that much of the grassroots energy in both parties is with the closed-minded absolutists on the fringes, what are you doing about it? Are you voting in primary elections? Are you helping choose party leaders for your county, your state? Are you running for leadership positions yourself? Are you showing up for precinct committee meetings, district elections, town halls with your elected officials? Because I guarantee you, voters on the Far Right and Far Left are. They show up. And if those are the voices party leaders and elected officials hear from mos
t then those voices will exercise influence over the local and state parties, over the national party, and over our national affairs that exceeds the strength of their actual numbers. If you want politics to be more civil, if you want Congress to argue less and get more done, then show up. Represent. Play as big a role in the mundane activities of politics as the zealots do. It’s important.
At the same time, we need to recover some perspective about how much someone’s politics is a testament to their character. When did politics become the principal or only attribute we use to judge people? Republicans and Democrats can be good neighbors, loving parents, loyal Americans, decent human beings. I don’t remember another time in my life when so many Americans considered someone’s partisan affiliation a test of whether that person was entitled to their respect. Ted Kennedy and I never voted for the same candidate for President. Nor did Joe Biden and I. Nor Russ Feingold and I. Nor any number of Democrats whose friendship made my life richer, and made me a better senator and a better person.
There are things other than personal commitment and reflection we can do to improve our politics and our government. We can change some of the rules and practices of politics that favor dysfunction. We can take on gerrymandering, and stop surrendering total control over the drawing of state legislative and congressional district lines to politicians motivated solely by the desire to opposition-proof as many seats as they can. Too many members of Congress can’t lose a general election because their districts are preposterously drawn and overwhelmingly populated by fellow partisans. The only challenge they ever have to fear is from their right or left flanks in a primary, which, again, amplifies the voices on the fringes, and gives them greater influence over state legislatures and Congress.
I joined an amicus brief against gerrymandering last year, with anti-gerrymandering Republicans John Kasich, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and others, in a case pending before the Supreme Court. Democrats in Wisconsin sued the state, claiming that new legislative and congressional districts were intended to put Democrats at such an electoral disadvantage that they were practically disenfranchised. A lower court ruled in their favor. I don’t know how the Supreme Court will rule. I’m not terribly optimistic, given my previous exposure to the Court majority’s uninformed views of modern campaign practices in the Citizens United case. Who knows, maybe they’ll surprise me. But Americans don’t have to wait for the courts to mandate basic fairness in elections. We can demand it from our elected representatives. We can vote on it. In states that have ballot initiatives, we can support referenda that would establish a nonpartisan redistricting system. We can vote in state legislative races for candidates who commit to drawing lines that fairly represent the entire population. Organize and vote. That is and always will be our greatest power over our government.
We can demand a less secretive and corrupting campaign finance system. The Court, in its current configuration, will continue to argue that money is speech, and as with mansions and yachts, rich Americans simply get to buy more of it than Americans of more modest means can afford. But you can still change the law to require that 501(c)(4)s, so-called nonprofit social welfare organizations, are required to disclose their donors. They’re often financed by one or two or several billionaires, who can spend unlimited amounts of money effectively in support of a candidate or candidates, and consequently yield enormous influence over the positions and votes of those candidates while their identities remain a secret. Opponents of campaign finance reform have always argued that the most effective corrective to corruption is full disclosure, identifying donors and subjecting them to public scrutiny and pressure. Time to make them put up or shut up.
As always, more important than any political reforms is the discernment of voters. Here’s my unsolicited advice to the American voter. If a candidate for Congress pledges to ride his white horse to Washington and lay waste to all the scoundrels living off your taxes, to never work or socialize or compromise with any of them, to make an example of them, and then somehow get them to bow to your will and the superiority of your ideas, don’t vote for that guy. It sounds exciting, but it’s an empty boast and a commitment to more gridlock, and gridlock is boring. If a candidate modestly promises to build relationships on both sides of the aisle, to form alliances to promote their ideas, to respect other points of view, and split differences where possible to make measurable progress on national problems, ask that candidate to run for President. Their humility and honesty commend them for the job.
There is a scarcity of humility in politics these days. I suspect it’s never been in abundant supply in most human enterprises. And I don’t mean modesty. Any politician worth a damn can fake modesty. Humility is the self-knowledge that you possess as much inherent dignity as anyone else, and not one bit more. Among its other virtues, humility makes for more productive politics. If it vanishes entirely, we will tear our society apart. No one will feel we owe each other the truth, much less our respect.
In the course of a long career, I’ve seen a decline in civility and cooperation, and increased obstructionism. But there are still enough statesmen in Congress and the executive branch committed to meeting the challenges of the hour, and putting the country they’re honored to serve before narrower interests. They might not be the most colorful politicians in town, but they’re usually the ones who get the most done. And it’s not like there was ever a golden age of politics when everybody acted strictly in the public interest, and set aside personal ambitions to promote peace and brotherhood with the opposition. There is still corruption here, as there is in any human institution. But far, far less of it than in past times, when bribery of one sort or another was practically standard practice. We’ve drifted into stasis. Because the permanent campaign is a reality in this century, we too often blur the distinction between the requirements of campaigning and the responsibilities of the elective office.
This is my last term. If I hadn’t admitted that to myself before this summer, a stage 4 cancer diagnosis acts as ungentle persuasion. I’m freer than colleagues who will face the voters again. I can speak my mind without fearing the consequences much. And I can vote my conscience without worry. I don’t think I’m free to disregard my constituents’ wishes, far from it. I don’t feel excused from keeping pledges I made. Nor do I wish to harm my party’s prospects. But I do feel a pressing responsibility to give Americans my best judgment and to take good care to keep my personal interests and my party’s subordinate to the national interest. That is what I tried to do in last summer’s debate on legislation to repeal Obamacare.
I received calls in my office, in the Republican cloakroom, on my cell phone, and at home. I was buttonholed on the floor, in the halls, and in visits to my office, urging me to support whatever Mitch and the White House proposed. Democratic friends entreated me to force the bipartisan cooperation I had advocated in my speech by helping defeat the Republican proposal, whatever it turned out to be. I had already been called a hypocrite by liberal detractors for allegedly betraying the sentiments expressed in my speech when I voted for the motion to proceed. As noted, I was skeptical that the final product of last-minute Republican scrambling and lobbying would be something I could support. And I had stated quite explicitly in my speech that I wouldn’t support the underlying bill or any bill that offered as few or fewer protections to people who could lose their health insurance. But I wouldn’t close a door on a Republican bill before I knew for certain what was in it. I had filed three amendments to address problems that my governor, Doug Ducey, had called to my attention. I thought it a reasonable position to wait to see if the bill would be improved before deciding whether or not to support it. But it did make me a target for persuasion, and I was the beneficiary of quite a lot of it, some subtle, some impassioned, some well-reasoned, some pleading.
On the nay side of the Obamacare repeal effort, the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, spoke with me most often, pledging his caucus’s good faith in efforts to work out a bipartisan bill in Lamar and
Patty’s committee. I heard from Democratic friends in and out of the Senate. My old pal Joe Lieberman, who had left the Senate in 2012, called. He had called me earlier to sympathize about my recent bad luck, and promised to pray for me, which if you know Joe, is a sincere and thorough undertaking. When he called again, we commiserated some more and he reminded me he was praying for me. Then he gently lobbied me to vote no. I promised him I would give it my full consideration. I talked to Susan and Lisa, who were almost certain no votes. Joe Biden, in our long talk about my cancer diagnosis and treatment, managed to tell me he was sure I would do the right thing. I wasn’t entirely sure what at that moment was the right thing to do. I kept an open mind to arguments on both sides.
I realized when leadership formally confirmed that their minimalist compromise, the aforementioned skinny repeal, would be their substitute to the underlying House bill, that I would likely vote against it. I had campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare. Skinny repeal would have killed off essential provisions of Obamacare, likely causing the whole thing to collapse, and offered literally nothing with which to replace it. Leadership assured us that a replacement could be found in conference with the House. But given the wide differences on the issue between House and Senate Republicans, I thought that unlikely. I feared that all the conferees would be able to do was accept the Senate bill, repealing but not replacing Obamacare and robbing millions of Americans of their health insurance. If that were the case, only the House would have to vote on the bill again because only the House bill would have been changed. If it were entirely unchanged from the bill passed by the Senate, we wouldn’t get another opportunity to reject the final product. On Thursday, the last day of the debate, Lindsey convinced me to join him in a press conference to criticize the Republican bill and demand assurances that there would be a conference. Speaker Paul Ryan publicly and privately gave us those assurances. But what he couldn’t guarantee is that the conference would produce a better bill or at least a bill that we would be able to vote against. He couldn’t promise that skinny repeal wouldn’t be the final measure sent to the President’s desk.