FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Sunday, June 29, 2008

MCCAIN CALLS LINCOLN, TR AND REAGAN HIS ROLE MODELS;

SAYS HE DOESN’T WANT TO BE LIKE HOOVER

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OBAMA ALSO SHARES LOVE OF LINCOLN; IMPRESSED WITH WASHINGTON FOR LEAVING AFTER TWO TERMS: HE COULD ‘STEP OUTSIDE HIS OWN AMBITIONS’

            New York—Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain tells Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham, when asked which presidents he thinks of as inspirational figures, “On the obvious plus side, Lincoln, TR and Reagan are people who are in many respects my role models.” And when asked who he didn’t want to be like, McCain says, “One I was thinking about very recently because of this anti-free-trade, protectionism sentiment that understandably is being bred by our severe economic problems is Herbert Hoover.  In 1930, he signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and there were other actions that the administration and Congress took that sent us from a recession into a deep depression. And my study of history is that Herbert Hoover was at least acquiescent, if not very active, in taking all the wrong steps, which again not only didn’t help the situation but exacerbated conditions which led to the most severe depression in the history of this nation.”

            McCain and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama talk to Meacham in his  opening essay about presidents and historical memory in the July 7-14 double issue, “The (mostly) Big Thoughts Edition” (on newsstands Monday, June 30). This issue will remain on newsstands for two weeks.

Obama shares McCain’s love of Lincoln, Meacham writes. “When I think about presidents, I start with Lincoln, and not just because I’m from Illinois,” Obama says. “I think he embodies those qualities that are the very best in America: upward mobility, an embrace of the future and an ability to stand fast on principle while acknowledging the other side of the debate.” Washington’s leaving office after two terms impresses Obama, too: “Our first president was someone who could step outside his own ambitions.”

And the examples he wants to avoid? “You know, I have to admit that I don’t spend a lot of time reading about failed presidents,” he says, then goes on: “There is a long list of presidents who did not rise to the times—Hoover, Buchanan, Andrew Johnson. Many of them are people who did not see, for example, the fault lines of slavery, or the dangers of depression.

Cover story: http://www.newsweek.com/id/143866