The captains of our fate

Bill Kristol:

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It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The young Henley had written this following the amputation of his foot because of tubercular infection. He lived until age 53, apparently unbow’d and unafraid, a productive poet, critic and editor. (The one-legged Henley also served as an inspiration for his close friend Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” character Long John Silver.)

One can see why “Invictus” might have appealed to the young McCain. One can see why snatches of it might have stuck in his mind while a prisoner of war, and after. But his allusion to its coda reminds us of what’s so distinctive about McCain as a contemporary political figure: He’s not thoroughly modern.

In this he differs from his competitors. Mitt Romney is the very model of a modern venture capitalist. Mike Huckabee is the very model of a modern evangelical. Rudy Giuliani is the very model of a modern can-do executive. They are impressive modern men all. But John McCain is a not-so-modern type. One might call him a neo-Victorian — rigid, self-righteous and moralizing, but (or rather and) manly, courageous and principled.

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McCain has been the only Republican candidate who hasn’t tried to out-think the process. Perhaps out of sheer necessity, after his campaign imploded last summer, he simply picked himself up and made his case to the voters in the various states.

Meanwhile, the other G.O.P. candidates are creatures of our modern age of analysis and meta-analysis, and their campaigns have sometimes been too clever by half. Rudy Giuliani believed it would look bad to contest states he might not win. He therefore pulled back from Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and South Carolina — and in the process surrendered his lead in Florida and nationally.

Conservatives were excited about Fred Thompson last spring. But Thompson apparently decided it would be too simple to strike while the iron was hot. He never recovered. And Mike Huckabee, after an extraordinary run in the fall, brought on experienced campaign pros, changed his position on immigration, raised the issue of the Confederate flag — and lost South Carolina.

Meanwhile, trying to be clever, Mitt Romney left South Carolina and headed to Nevada, thinking he could get more attention for his expected victory in the caucus there. If he had stayed and campaigned in South Carolina, he still would have won Nevada. And he might have cost McCain enough votes that McCain would have lost South Carolina to Huckabee, a much better outcome for the Romney campaign.

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What really separates the Republicans from the Democrats if the belief of all of them that we are the captains of our fate. Democrats believe we should manage out decline. This has been their belief since the 1970's. During the Carter administration they were actually talking about how we could not expect to be on top for ever. Ronald Reagan brought a different vision the the White House that led instead to the decline and fall of the Soviet Union. Democrats have been willing to give up on Iraq when the going got tough but Bush and some determined people in our military should what was still possible. The poem cited by McCain should be a message for all Republicans.

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I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.