ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A presidential candidate’s return to his high school rarely generates striking drama, and today John McCain appeared at a relatively apolitical event at Episcopal High School in the northern Virginia suburbs of the nation’s capital.
The school was quick to emphasize that they were not endorsing McCain, merely welcoming back a distinguished alumnus. A smallest of stirs was created when one student asked why, if the event was meant to be nonpolitical, all the national press was attending and treating the event as a campaign stop.
“I knew I should have cut this off,” McCain joked in response. “This meeting is over.”
But McCain then segued to a perfectly pleasant explanation that the stop was indeed part of his campaign, a return to key sites in the candidate’s life that shaped him – a military airfield named after his grandfather yesterday, Annapolis tomorrow, and his flight school in Florida Thursday – and that the American people ought to know the places that shaped his values and his character. When that answer did indeed close the event, the student, along with her classmates, applauded.
Recurring references to what shapes “values” and “character” – like the biographical ad the McCain campaign is running in New Mexico right now – are likely to be the steady drumbeat of his effort from now until the Democrats have a nominee, as it provides a high-minded, relatively nonpartiasan, near-ideal contrast to the mudslinging going on between Hillary and Obama.
McCain’s remarks focused on the teacher who influenced him most, William Ravenel who taught English. McCain said he made Macbeth and Hamlet as fascinating to young men as to a literary scholar. Ravenel was still enlisted in the military when he was a teacher here; he passed away while McCain was a POW. McCain got mildly choked up for a moment when he called Ravenel “one of the finest men I’ve ever known.”
(Some bloggers have wondered if a web video that touts Ravenel once again sets up an unspoken contrast with Obama and his mentor. The video was played before McCain’s appearance at the school today.)
McCain noted the school’s honor code — “I will not lie, I will not cheat, I will not steal, and I will turn in any student who does”– helped shape him; the honor code is still in effect at the school today.
(No wonder McCain gets along well with the press – in 1953 and 1954, he was on the school’s newspaper, the Chronicle.)
There were a few very limited references to politics or public policy. McCain touted No Child Left Behind, saying that honestly reporting student progress is the first step to improving student performance. He said teaching was “an underpaid profession” that did not . He said “schools should compete to be innovative.”
As it was a student crowd – and yes, this meant McCain spent the morning making his pitch to an audience that largely will be unable to vote in November – their questions rarely ventured into politics or public policy; they were mostly on how the school shaped him. One student asked McCain’s pick in the NCAA tournament (his choice of UNC had about half the boys applauding) and another asked how many presidential candidates went to their rival school, Woodberry Forrest.
Leftover notes:
McCain’s mother recently celebrated her 96th birthday.
This fall McCain recorded a pregame speech for the school’s football team, played before their big game against Woodberry Forrest. The team won, and the team’s captains presented McCain with an autographed football at the end of the event.