John McCain, a POW turned political rebel, vowed Thursday night to vanquish the “constant partisan rancor” that grips Washington as he launched his fall campaign for the White House. “Change is coming,” he promised the roaring Republican National Convention and a prime-time television audience.
His message resonated with local Republicans huddled around a television in Armuchee.
“America really is at a critical point and both candidates are promoting change,” said Floyd County Commissioner Chad Whitefield. “But John McCain is providing real solutions with his policies and philosophies on lower taxes, smaller government and independent accountability.”
To repeated cheers from his delegates, McCain criticized fellow Republicans as well as Democratic rival Barack Obama as he reached out to independents and disaffected Democrats.
“We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us,” he said of the Republicans who controlled Congress for most of the past 15 years.
As for Obama, he said, “I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it.”
Before McCain’s speech, the climax of the final night of the party convention, delegates awarded the vice presidential nomination to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the first female ticketmate in Republican history.
“She stands up for what’s right and she doesn’t let anyone tell her to sit down,” McCain said of the woman who has faced intense scrutiny in the week since she was picked.
“And let me offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second Washington crowd: Change is coming,” McCain declared to the convention.
Michael Morton of the Floyd County Republican Party said listening to McCain “makes you feel safe, and that the country’s going to be safe and prosperous.”
Morton said McCain and Palin together are a team that resonates with the American people.
“People are tired of a broken government, a government that doesn’t listen, a government that dominates our lives — and they’re going to reform it,” he said.
McCain and Palin were departing their national convention city immediately after the Arizona senator’s acceptance speech, bound for Wisconsin and an early start on the final weeks of the 2008 White House campaign season.
McCain, at 72 bidding to become the oldest first-term president, drew a roar from the convention crowd when he walked out onto the stage lighted by a single spotlight. He was introduced by a video that dwelt heavily on his time spent as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and as a member of Congress, hailed for a “faithful unyielding love for America, country first.”
“USA, USA, USA,” chanted the crowd in the hall.
McCain faced a delicate assignment as he formally accepted his party’s presidential nomination: presenting his credentials as a reformer willing to take on his own party and stressing his independence from an unpopular President Bush — all without breaking faith with his Republican base.
He set about it methodically.
“After we’ve won, we’re going to reach out our hand to any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again,” he said, and he pledged to invite Democrats and independents to serve in his administration.
He mentioned President Bush only in passing, as the
leader who led the country through the days after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
And there was plenty for conservative Republicans to cheer — from his pledge to free the country from the grip of its dependence on
foreign oil, to a vow to have schools answer to parents and students rather than “unions and entrenched bureaucrats.”
A man who has clashed repeatedly with Republicans in Congress, he said proudly, “I’ve been called a maverick. Sometimes it’s meant as a compliment and sometimes it’s not. What it really means is I understand who I work for.
“I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you.”
Rome News-Tribune Staff Writer Diane Wagner contributed to this report.
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