An article about Senator John McCain, the current champion of the Morris K.
Udall Parkinson's bill, was featured in the Sunday, May 25th issue of the
New York Times Magazine. The author is Michael Lewis, a columnist for the
Magazine. His book "Trail Fever", published by Knopf, is about the 1996
Presidential campaign. It will be out in June.
The following excerpts are from the article entitled "The Subversive"
"When he was elected to the House in 1982 . . . . (John McCain's)
visceral hostility toward Democrats generaly was quickly tempered by his
tendency to see people as individuals and judge them that way. He was
taken in hand by Morris Udall, the Arizona Congressman who was the liberal
conscience of the Congress and a leading voice for reform. (Most famously-
and disastrously for his own career - Udall took aim a the seniority system
that kept young talent in its place at the end of the dais. 'The longer
you're here, the more you'll like it,' he used to joke to incoming
freshmen.)
'Mo reached out to me in 50 different ways,' McCain recalled.
'Right from the start, he'd say: 'I'm going to hold a press conference out
in Phoenix. Why don't you join me?' All these journalists would show up
to hear what Mo had to say. In the middle of it all, Mo would point to me
and say, 'I'd like to hear John's views.' Well, hell, I didn't have any
views. But I got up and learned and was introduced to the state.' Four
years later, when McCain ran for and won Barry Goldwater's Senate seat, he
said he felt his greatest debt of gratitude not to Goldwater - who had
shunned him - but to Udall. 'There's no way Mo could have been more
wonderful,' he says, 'and there was no reason for him to be that way.'
For the past few years, Udall has lain ill with Parkinson's disease
in a veterans hospital in Northeast Washington, which is where we were
heading. Every few weeks, McCain drives over to pay his respects. . . .
McCain brings with him a stack of newspaper clips on Udall's favorite
subjects: local politics in Arizona, environmental legislation, Native
American land disputes - subjects in which McCain intitially had no
particular interest. Now, when the Republican Senator from Arizona takes
the floor on behalf of Native Americans, or when he writes an op-ed piece
arguing that the Republican Party should embrace environmentalism, or when
the polls show once again that he is Arizona's most popular politician he
remains aware of his debt to Arizona's most influentical Democrat.
On the way out of the parking lot McCain recalled what it was like
to be a nobody called upon by a somebody. . . (he) spoke of how it affected
him when Udall took him by the hand. It was a simple act of affection and
admiration, and for that reason it meant all the more to McCain. It was
one man saying to another, We disagree in politics but not in life. It was
one man saying to another, Party political differences cut only so deep.
Having made that step, they found much to agree upon and many useful ways
to work together. This is the reason McCain keeps coming to see Udall even
after Udall has lost his last shred of political influence. The politics
were never all that important."
Mo Udall. . . Muhammad Ali. . . John McCain . . . Pope John Paul . . .
Janet Reno . . . Parkinson's better watch its step, we have some mighty
fine people on our side.
Regards,
Ken Aidekman
Fund the Research. Find the Cure.
