McCain: I Am Most Experienced

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McCain: I Am Most Experienced

At 70, John McCain can't hide the fact he's not the youngest candidate in the race for the GOP presidential nomination.

So he emphasized his experience and wisdom during a North Liberty town hall meeting Monday night.

"I am the most-prepared to take on the great challenge of this century," he told a few hundred people at the Community Center Gerdin Conference Center. "I have the vision, and I have the experience. I am the most qualified."

As a 22-year Navy officer, former prisoner of war and 20-year member of the U.S. Senate from Arizona, McCain said he knows how the world works.

"I've seen good and I've seen evil," he said. "I know how to work with world leaders who want a free and prosperous world, and I know how to stand up to those who don't."

And where he stands may not make him the most agreeable candidate, McCain conceded. Even as he polished his conservative bona fides, McCain promised to "disagree with you on an issue or two."

That seemed to be the case when McCain received only tepid applause for saying he would close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo because "it's a symbol in the world of torture and mistreatment of prisoners."

The applause was more enthusiastic when he praised a recent Supreme Court decision upholding the ban on a procedure known as partial-birth abortion, when he called federal spending out of control and again when he rejected the idea of a government-run health care program.

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