by Mark Silva
Sen. John McCain, who will be 72 at inauguration if he is elected president – the oldest ever at swearing-in – was asked about joking that it won’t be difficult for him to find a younger running mate.
He also was asked about his reputation for a temper.
“Everyone’s life is a work in progress,” replied McCain, adding that he has a suitable temperament for the most critical issues facing the next president, and that Americans expect a president “to get angry” sometimes. “I will get angry” at corruption and abuses, he promised.
“When you’re asked about who your vice president would be,” CNN’s Dana Bash asked McCain (R-Ariz.), “you say that there are two real roles for the vice president and one is to check on the health of the president and you joked a couple of weeks ago in Pennsylvania that that would be especially important in your case.”
“In all candor, I will continue to use humor,” McCain said, “and if any commentator chooses to take a humorous remark and turn it into something serious they are free to do that. But I will continue to use humor and I think the American people like to have a little humor from time to time….And that was what that whole line was about.”
“In all seriousness,” Bash asked, in the interview aired by CNN today, “when you are approaching who you are picking for the vice president, do you think about your age as a factor?”
“Not particularly, no,” McCain said. “I think about whether that person who I selected would be most prepared to take my place and that would be the key criteria.” “One last thing,” Bash asked, “because you’re talking about it here at Episcopal (the high school in Alexandria, Va., where McCain graduated, and where he campaigned today).
“You are making light, we’re talking about humor, of your storied and the – the temper that you say you have and in rereading some of your books to prepare for this bio tour, I noticed that it’s a constant them that you yourself talk about even from the time you were a toddler that you had a temper and that it’s maybe been a lifelong struggle to try to figure out how to contain that.
“A voter out there reads your books, listen to you, humor or not, about talking about your temper and they say, do I want this guy with his finger on the button? What do you say?
“Well, I say that everyone’s life is a work in progress,” McCain replied. “I have a better and more impressive record of bipartisanship and working across the aisle and legislative solutions and leadership than anybody that’s running against me by far.And those leadership qualities required an even temper.
“And those abilities to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats for the good of my constituents and the country are clear indications that that’s a very, very minor thing when it’s compared to my record of accomplishment,” he said. “My record of accomplishment required even, mature and experienced judgment in order to achieve what I’ve achieved and I’m confident the American people will judge that as well and I am confident that they’ll look at my record and my vision….
“And if they don’t expect me to get angry when I see corruption in Washington, when I see wasting needlessly of their tax dollars, when I see people behaving badly, they expect me to get angry and I will get angry because I won’t stand for corruption and I won’t stand for waste of your tax dollars and I will demand that people serve their country first and the special interests second.”