September 5, 2008 11:19AM # You’re No Reagan–or Lincoln By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE [Last night](http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/Speeches/ef046a10-706a-4dd5-bd01-b93b36b054bc.htm) John McCain proclaimed himself the candidate of “the party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan.” One of Abraham Lincoln’s most famous speeches was his 1852 [eulogy for Henry Clay](http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3487). “He loved his country partly because it was his own country,” Lincoln declared, “but mostly because it was a free country.” John McCain managed to give a lengthy tribute to America’s virtues without mentioning that it was a free country: > I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else’s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn’t my own man anymore. I was my country’s. Fine sentiments, and he did mention that America is “an idea, a cause worth fighting for.” But what is that idea or that cause? He didn’t say. He never mentioned the Constitution, or the Declaration, or the freedom that has made America a beacon to the world. Indeed, his message seemed less like Lincoln’s and more like John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).