Last week I joined John McCain’s 2008 campaign for President as his Mississippi chairman, co-chairman with Senator Lindsey Graham of the Southern region, and a member of McCain’s U.S. House Whip Team.
I chose Senator John McCain for three primary reasons. 1) He is the conservative candidate I believe to be best qualified to handle the preeminent issue of our day: national defense and homeland security. 2) I believe he has a passion and commitment to reform our failing government bureaucracies. 3) He will seek the politics of results.
First, we must have a commander in chief with the foreign policy credentials and steel resolve to win our Global War on Terror and finish well our war in Iraq. I measured our candidates on their ability and experience to direct a global war on terror, manage and complete a war in Iraq, and command the respect of our troops and allies. John McCain’s experience and national defense credentials make him the most qualified person to serve as our next commander in chief.
Second, we must have the kind of reformer who will take on the status quo and challenge the entrenched special interests and bureaucracies that make government less effective. The federal response to Hurricane Katrina teemed with waste as each layer of bureaucracy siphoned off needed federal funds, until sometimes only half or a quarter of what Congress appropriated reached the victims. John McCain’s dedication to a smaller government through cutting waste and restraining unnecessary spending shows he will not bend in the fight to make the government more effective and more responsive to tax payers.
Third, we need a politics of results. I don’t suggest the ends justify the means, but we need a principled pragmatism: one in which we hold to our values, achieve our goals, and do it in an effective way even if it isn’t the perfect way. When Democrats filibustered President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, John McCain brought leadership to the Senate....