Why John McCain’s loss feels personal

I can’t quite put my finger on why I’ll miss Senator John McCain so much. I seem to have this feeling that I knew the man, which of course I didn’t. What made him seem so familiar and special? I suppose it has something to do with the personal attachment to presidential candidates that we feel here in New Hampshire during primary season.

I always made a point to see McCain when he was in my hometown of Peterborough. The first time was at an ice cream social in the summer of 1999, early in the run up to the 2000 primary. A small crowd of about 30 people partially filled a meeting room in the 100-year-old brick Town House. My husband and I brought our nine-year-old daughter to see grass-roots politics in action, basically bribing her with ice cream.

McCain, along with his Straight Talk Express bus, was about to become the darling of that New Hampshire primary, which he won by 17 points defeating George W. Bush. But on that day, you wouldn’t know it. He gave a short, no-frills stump speech in the basement of the Town House and then opened the floor to discussion.

When he asked for questions, my nine-year-old’s hand shot up as if she were vying to be chosen for an elite kickball team. I pressed lightly on her outstretched arm to push it back down. I figured that talking to Senator McCain was serious business for the adults in the room. Besides, I had no idea what was about to come out of my kid’s mouth. McCain took notice (it was hard not to), nodded his head in my daughter’s direction, grinned, and said, “Yes, young lady, what is your question?”

She framed it succinctly without hesitation, “There are too many kids smoking at my school. What are you going to do about it?”

McCain seemed to take great pleasure in that moment. I’m guessing it had something to do with our daughter’s spunk. But no doubt he was also delighted to answer a question that led directly to some talking points about anti-tobacco legislation that he was currently sponsoring. Our daughter had unwittingly thrown him a softball.

After a 15-minute question-and-answer session, McCain went around the room and shook everyone’s hand. Each and every one of us. He chatted up my daughter with special attention.

After that, we were hooked. We saw him multiple times at the Town House. I even ran into him on the street in front of the bookstore once as he was walking downtown with a small swarm of reporters around him. I later discovered that McCain was often in town because he’d developed a particular fondness for Peterborough, holding the last Town Hall meetings of both his 2000 and 2008 primaries there.

Regardless of the setting, McCain was a perfect fit for the Granite State. He always came across as an affable, charming rascal. A maverick and a middle man, the senator had no airs. He just spoke his mind. He deeply appreciated bipartisanship and his ideas often resonated with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike. His record backed his words. His bipartisan initiatives in Congress included major legislation on campaign finance reform and the pursuit of significant immigration reform as a member of the Gang of Eight. He pursued these aisle-crossing alliances for one simple reason: he thought it was good for the country.

Beloved by many in our state, McCain was sometimes referred to as New Hampshire’s senator from Arizona. This is high praise in a place where participation in the presidential primary is considered an intramural sport. We talk politics along with Red Sox scores as a matter of course. Our state representatives comprise the third largest legislature in the English-speaking world (after the British Parliament and the United States Congress). In a state of 1.3 million people, this means that virtually everyone in New Hampshire knows someone who has held state office and we freely share our opinions with them.

We feel it is our duty to talk straight. And we live by our words in small cities and towns in which we need to get along with our neighbors. We speak our minds respectfully (mostly) and move on. We don’t like bullies. And we loved McCain for playing the game in much the same way.

McCain’s appeal also had to do with his willingness to buck his own party when he felt it was warranted—most recently when he voted against repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Of course, this doesn’t mean he wasn’t a conservative Republican most of the time. He was. He just didn’t let his pack dictate his every move.

He made mistakes. The selection of Governor Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate in 2008 was a major error. Refreshingly, he was able to publicly admit this and other mistakes too. This characteristic elevated him to the kind of citizen our founders imagined: imperfect, yet principled and dedicated to the flourishing of the republic. No one needed to tell McCain the difference between right and wrong. He had an innate moral meter. This didn’t mean he used it all the time. Who does? But he knew when he’d overstepped his bounds and accepted the consequences.

Mercurial at times, McCain could be a hothead, a statesman, a taskmaster, and a truth teller. He was quick with a quip. It made him all the more relatable; he was human like us. He took chances and, yes, failed at times. When he did speak forcefully it was often to defend not just policies, but the truth. As in a frequently quoted video clip in which he corrected an attendee at one of his 2008 campaign rallies who called President Obama an Arab: “No, ma’am. No ma’am. He’s a decent family man and citizen…”

Even as he entered his eighties, McCain never felt like an old-school relic. He was a walking, talking Golden Rule who was unafraid to take down jerks and tyrants in defense of his country. His virtues—the ones that columnist David Brooks talks about as eulogy virtues—were on display each day. We didn’t need McCain to die to recognize his character traits of courage, honor, duty, and honesty. 

My 28-year-old daughter texted me several times in the 24-hour period that began with McCain’s decision to stop treatment for brain cancer. She was deeply saddened by the news. She now works in D.C., in politics herself. I have no doubt that her career was influenced in some small part by her brief encounter with McCain when she was nine.

When his death was announced, I heard it first from her. Neither of us are Republicans and, still, the loss was searing. She and I agreed that his death represented more than the passing of an elder statesman. It felt like the death of the country’s integrity, a loss of someone who knew how to defend our institutions in essential and necessary ways. Then she said something you rarely hear about any politician these days.

“He was wonderful,” she said.

Just that. He was.

What Gate 35X can teach us about chaotic times

American Airlines Gate 35X may be one of the most dreaded airport gates in the country. Tucked into a terminal at Reagan National Airport in D.C., it’s a gateway for small flights to minor markets. Going to Syracuse? Dayton? Birmingham? Well, take a seat. You’re likely to be part of the herd at 35X.

Whenever someone I know travels in and out of Reagan, she checks the gate assignment with a combination of anticipation and trepidation. There’s not a single person who says “I got 35X” without an eye roll and a sigh.

I travel to and from D.C. frequently and have managed to avoid 35X until about a week ago when my flight from Reagan to Manchester, N.H., was delayed for four hours and eventually canceled. I’ve never been more confused by a gate experience in my life.

When I arrived at the gate, I searched for a reassuring monitor to display my flight number, destination, and departure time. Instead I was greeted by what looked like another departures board. It listed about a dozen flights; several of which were leaving from 35X at the same time.

It took about ten minutes for me to figure out exactly what the boarding process entailed. It went something like this. An announcer would call your flight and tell you which bus line to get into. Yup, a bus. You then would take an escalator down one floor and line up for your shuttle bus, being careful to pick the right bus line since God forbid you end up on a flight to Kansas when that was not your intention. The bus would take you to your small airplane parked on the tarmac in an out-of-the-way location that made it look like the plane was being punished.

I, of course, never got that far. I stayed stuck in the purgatory of the 35X waiting area, an unwelcoming place sectioned off in ways that inhibit pedestrian flow. It wasn’t entirely obvious where to sit and wait for my flight. It felt more like a bus station than an airport gate. I found myself literally sitting on the edge of my seat, afraid to go to the bathroom and miss my cattle call.

After the first several flight delays, I had a sixth sense about this flight’s eventual cancellation. I caught myself looking longingly at nearby Gate 35. I was so envious of its single destination, clear display on the monitor, and neatly carved-out seating. Right. Next. Door. It made me slightly weepy.

But the numerous delays did provide me with plenty of time to contemplate the absurdity of the 35X experience. It felt a lot like the era we live in. While I was at 35X, there was a lot of untrustworthy information displayed on the monitor. Sometimes the monitor listed my flight’s original departure time; other times the delayed departure time displayed. Then it would switch back. A few times the flight was listed as “closed”; other times the flight disappeared from the board entirely only to reappear fifteen minutes later.

Some of the “facts” displayed on the monitor were completely untrue. I was forced to make sense of the incongruent information by asking a lot of questions: of fellow travelers, of people at the services desk, and of the really nice young woman who stood at the top of the escalator, calling out the flight information like an old-fashioned train conductor, “PRO-vi-DENCE! Line #1!”

Basically, at 35X, it’s pretty difficult to know what’s happening. All of the time. It almost feels intentionally confusing. I longed for the norms and conventions of a typical flight experience, but that was a quaint notion in the 35X vortex. I learned to rely on the many new friends I made in the waiting area since we couldn’t help but talk to one another in order to understand what the hell was going on.

Throughout it all, I continued to hope for the best and trust that I’d arrive at my destination. Even though it turned out I’d be arriving the next day.

A few days after I returned from D.C., I saw that Gate 35X stumbled into its own fifteen minutes of fame. Robert Mueller and Donald Trump, Jr. were spotted waiting at the same time for flights from this infamous gate. A wonderful photo from Politico captured the moment.

When I saw the photo of the two men within a few feet of one another at 35X, it made me giggle. Even powerful people have to travel together through difficult circumstances. As journalist James Fallows tweeted in response to the photo, “If you’ve been to Gate 35X at DCA, you realize that these two opposing figures were momentarily unified by a greater common enemy, namely 35X.”

If only it could be so. Mueller and Trump both looked unfazed. Maybe 35X has some magic in it after all.

Is hate the new optimism in America?

I was struck by Mayor Gavin Buckley’s response to the shootings at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, on Thursday. The Australian immigrant to the U.S. spoke passionately about the need for us all to get along. In the wake of a terrible tragedy, this leader found the presence and strength to deliver a message of reconciliation in response to an act of hate.

He offered more than prayers. He offered more than a statement to remember the victims’ families in our hearts and minds. He offered a path forward, eloquently and clearly.

“This can’t be the new normal. We can’t just keep on accepting this. We can’t just move on to the next massacre,” said Buckley in one of several television interviews he gave in the aftermath of the shooting. He added, “We have a president who makes it ok to be angry, to be mad. We shouldn’t be mad all the time. We need to take a deep breath and realize that we’re all neighbors and we might disagree on things, but we’ve got to stop hating one another.” 

His reaction struck me as a rare response in these times. In our political environment, leaders like to take their opponents down publicly with an added dose of vindictiveness. And it’s no longer enough to battle the opposing party. Some politicians demean their opponents' supporters as well, calling the motives and intelligence of citizens into question and urging them to be disrespectful to one another. Hillary Clinton referred to Trump’s supporters as deplorables. Donald Trump routinely attacks his perceived enemies on Twitter (the list is too long to repeat here, but here’s a sampling). 

We all know the common storylines that we battle over every day. They are repeated often enough that they’ve become tropes: immigrants are criminals; the media cannot be trusted; our institutions are corrupt; the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt.

Stories about immigrants hit particularly close to home. It’s not an abstract belief to me; it’s a theme that pulses through my body and defines my life. My 25-year-old grandmother arrived from Sicily nearly a century ago with all of her personal belongings in a single wooden trunk. Considered an old maid back home, she was shipped off to live with relatives in Rochester, New York. The hope, no doubt, was that she would find a better life, maybe even a husband in a land where all dreams are possible.

She did find a mate in my grandfather who emigrated from Italy at 18 as part of an old-fashioned gap year. His father, a successful businessman, insisted that my grandfather spend one year in America as a sort of finishing school. The story goes that my grandfather’s parting words to his father were, “See you in a year, Dad!” My great-grandfather responded, “No, you won’t. Once you see America, you'll never come back.” My grandfather never returned to Italy. To this day, he remains the proudest American I’ve ever known.

I was reminded of this when listening to a recent piece on NPR’s Weekend Edition, which included interviews with new American citizens who’d come from Mexico and Venezuela. They spoke reverently of America and the life-changing ability to seek a better life and pursue opportunities not available in their former countries. They expressed such optimism about America. They didn’t talk about fighting with people who didn’t share their beliefs; they simply fought to be here. 

Even with their positive views of what America represents, immigrants have found themselves engulfed by extreme hate-based rhetoric. If we are to believe the talking points, many immigrants are criminals who must be kept out with an impenetrable wall. They are often drug dealers and sex offenders. Yet the reality is far different; most face meager existences and come to America for better economic opportunities. Others live in dangerous circumstances or are persecuted and need to flee for their own safety.

Immigrants risk everything to start over in America because of what our county represents: freedom. But what is freedom in America today? A woman's right to choose? A man's right to marry whomever he pleases? A voter's right to cast a ballot without encumbrances in a district that is not gamed for a specific result? Many Americans seem to have forgotten that freedom is an elastic concept. It must fit many needs, not just our own.

Instead, Americans are seeking freedom their way—and they want to impose it on everyone else. We jeer loudly when different viewpoints are expressed. We seem to think that if we hate hard enough, yell loud enough, and declare the other guy wrong, we can silence our opponents (our oppressors?), and the American dream will be ours.

Can we only feel optimistic about American values when our side wins and the other side loses?

We’ve entered a dangerous cycle of hate masked as righteousness. Our fondest hopes seem linked to suppressing the fondest hopes of others. We’ve abandoned the art of listening and compromise; key ingredients in the great American experiment. Instead we shame each other publicly; we even kill each other. This time five journalists were slaughtered in the Capital Gazette offices in Annapolis. A year ago, Republicans were shot on a baseball field outside Washington, D.C.

It took an Aussie immigrant, Mayor Buckley, to remind us of who we are and how to break the cycle. There must be a “live and let live” philosophy. We can’t have our own way all the time. We can’t expect others to live by our rules. The rules must be loosely framed to accommodate all Americans regardless of race, creed, or religion. We must be the lighthouse sending steady beacons of optimism, even to those who do not share our beliefs.

Pat Furgurson, a reporter at the Capital Gazette, may have summed it up best. After a police press conference in Annapolis, he was asked if he had any words to share with others. The Guardian reports that he choked up a bit then replied, “What’s so wrong about peace, love, and understanding?” Then he presumably went back to do his job, informing the public about local events in his Maryland community and, when warranted, speaking truth to power.