The Presidential Candidates: James H. McCall

The front page of McCall's website is admirable but redundant. It offers links to the complete text of the Declaration of Independence, the complete text of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The redundancy, of course, is that the Bill of Rights consists of amendments to the Constitution and is thus properly part of the "complete text" of that document. We'll give him a pass because it's never wrong to put these texts before the public.

"Shall we just be, or be all that we can be?" is the ultimate question posed on McCall's front page. His campaign is McCall's own way of living up to the challenge. "When the heart, the mind and the soul give impetus to the same purpose, the opportunities for success and achievement are the greatest," he writes. He's running because "I have a very strong need to express my thoughts, opinions, concepts, feelings, recommendations and proposals publicly. I need to positively influence desperately needed change in principle, meaning, style and result of government." So give him points for honesty and self-awareness.

What's in it for us? McCall explains: "I have the ability to lead and to direct, to teach what I know and to learn what I do not know, to set a prime example, to be your highest representative with honesty and diligence, to expect and to command top performance levels of all and to instill attitudes of cohesion and accomplishment."

The 65 year old McCall is an Air Force veteran and has been a truck driver, a retail and real estate salesman and a Pop Warner football coach. He's fond of making lists, going from A through L for "Values" and A through X on "Goals." In the latter category he includes downsizing government while increasing meaningful participation in it, especially by young people. He'll cut wasteful opulence in government, "reduc[ing] the lavishness of government functions to the minimum required by courtesy and consideration." That's really as specific as things get on his own page, but for Project VoteSmart he elaborated on specific issues.

McCall lists his top priority as suspending all immigration until the U.S. borders are secured. Everything else must wait, but that doesn't mean he lacks ideas on other issues. He refers readers to two separate sites, http://www.porkstopshere.com/ and http://www.onetax.com/, but both links actually take you to his own site.

Asked to name one thing he'd like to do before he dies, McCall names two, neither of which have to do with ending immigration: 'To appear before the entire Supreme Court to exclaim, "Out of the U.N.," "Guarantee our sovereignty," "Preserve our constitution" and "Ensure the value of U.S. citizenship." To appear before the entire Supreme Court to exclaim, "Never shall any world law or religious law usurp or supercede United States Constitutional Law".' McCall likes to exclaim, and the entire campaign, such as it is, looks like an excuse for him to vent.

The McCall campaign site is a work in progress. The most up-to-date part of it is his listing of press clips. These report that, while most else on the web hasn't been updated since 2006, he's been giving radio interviews and running ads in the Pennsylvania and Ohio area as recently as May 2008. He has also done the minimum a modern candidate of any stature can do, which is to post videos to You Tube. While I may seem to have disparaged McCall's efforts, I found this video a strong statement of the plight of all independent candidates, including some information I didn't know. The fact that four states in this union don't allow write-in candidacies should be a national scandal, and I thank McCall for bringing it to my attention.



On the other hand, his claim that 99% of the population in the late 1700s couldn't read or write is outrageously wrong. Politicians ought to know their history so they know what not to repeat.