Endorsing McCain

John McCain has every reason to quit. Giving up would simply remove him from an impossible situation where he has no hope of winning. Quitting isn’t a personal failure, just recognition of the proverbial facts on the ground.

That could have been said of McCain when he finished near the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy. Or when he was brutally and regularly beaten by his captors during the Vietnam War. Or when he took on his own party and entrenched Washington interests to fight for campaign finance and immigration reform. Or last summer, when everyone was sure his presidential campaign was dead.

Or now, when they’re saying the same thing.

Anyone who has watched John McCain over the years knows he is a fighter, a battle-scarred veteran of an ongoing struggle to do what he believes is right and best for his country, his party and his conscience.

We hope McCain doesn’t pay too much attention to the polls, and we hope the voters will take one last look at McCain.

Today, we endorse John McCain for president of the United States.

The next president will face a difficult, dangerous world and a teetering economy that could push it over the brink. We have replaced the word “problem” with the word “crisis” to describe the long list of challenges facing this country: The economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, health care, energy independence and federal government spending.

The solution to those challenges is a president who has both the long view of history and the experience of working shoulder-to-shoulder with members of the opposition party to craft solutions for a new century. That candidate is John McCain.

It’s ironic that the things that have hurt McCain with the extreme elements of his own party have not been recognized by the larger electorate. America has less than a week to finally get it right.

McCain has spent a career navigating the political shoals of Washington. He is uniquely able to work with a heavily Democratic Congress and a divided, frustrated nation. We say that because he has done that throughout his career.

We see a McCain presidency not only as a way to reach out to the disparate elements of a growing Democratic majority in Congress, but a way to also check the worst abuses of one-party rule.

McCain wants to cut our taxes and take any manner of sharp rhetorical devices to federal government spending: Hatchets, meat cleavers and even scalpels around the edges. That only makes sense. If you’re going to cut taxes, you have to cut federal spending, too.

McCain understands that. He also understands that it’s time to do something about health care costs, a constant worry of most Americans and a drag on American businesses.

Finally, McCain knows the horrors of war because he has survived them. He wants to find the honorable, safe and smart way out of Iraq.

It may be coincidental, but our country was attacked early in the first terms of our last two presidents (in 1993 and 2001). If America is again attacked by radical Islamic terrorists when President McCain is in office, he will take the fight to the terrorists.

McCain hasn’t been a perfect presidential candidate. His vice presidential choice, Gov. Sarah Palin, is clearly not ready to step into the top spot and her selection was an obvious concession to the more extreme elements of the Republican Party at a time when most candidates reach for the political center.

Democrats complain that a McCain presidency would be an extension of the Bush presidency. But nothing could be further from the truth. McCain has always been a maverick in the truest sense of the word.

We endorse John McCain for president and we urge Rockingham County voters to support him Tuesday. McCain is the clear choice for president of the United States.