Conversations with McCain — both John, and Meghan. Great Americans. Passionate. Honorable. I’ll remember you.
Senator John McCain — a great American, an inspiration politician and man — is still alive, so this little letter isn’t a eulogy but an honorarium; a “Thanks for the Memories”; and testimonial to a leader that I think / hope that I was destined to meet. It’s amazing how impactful a brief conversation can be.
It was more than a case of being in the right place at the right time (namely, in Puerto Rico for an American Magazine Conference where Mr. McCain was a featured speaker). Rather, I had the most unusual opportunity to walk up to him and say, “Sir, know your daughter a little bit.” Meghan McCain and I once lived in the same apartment building in Battery Park, NYC, and we’d run into one another at the rooftop gym-lounge where I held staff meetings for Citizen Culture Magazine, my First Love that privileged me to meet the Senator.
I was wowed by Meghan. I don’t know her mother, but I immediately knew she was her father’s daughter, with a twinkle of trouble in the eye, sarcastic and unhesitating to cut through the BS. It’s been a decade and a half since we last ran into one another (time flies!), but I recall an unanticipated melancholy when Meghan said she had trouble distinguishing people who wanted to know her from those who wanted to reach through her to get to her father.
(I assured Meghan that, while I admired her father, any chat-up from me was purely the result of being fascinated by a spunky blonde firebrand who clearly gave as good as she got.)
In October 2015, my business partner at the time — Igor Finkel, Deputy Publisher of Citizen Culture Magazine — and I flew to Puerto Rico for the American Magazine Conference. It was my first time on the island (if you haven’t been…go), and my first time gambling alongside a U.S. Senator. Truth be told, I hadn’t gambled much to that point, so I was fairly green —and perhaps it was this overall naivete that empowered me to sidle up to the Senator and mentioned that I kind of knew his daughter. Some might have found such a personal interlude off-putting, but not Mr. McCain: to the contrary, he saw it as a friendly entree, and we spent the rest of the evening shooting craps. In fact, Jeff Bercovici, covering the summit for WWD, highlighted our ruckus:
“ROLLING THE DICE: Sen. John McCain has long been a darling of the press, and it’s safe to say he picked up a few new fans at the American Magazine Conference that kicked off Sunday evening in Fajardo, Puerto Rico… As for whether he’ll seek that job, he said he is undecided. “I want to be president. I know very few of my colleagues who don’t,” he said. “The question is, do I want to run for president? I’d also like to be emperor.” (Newsweek editor Mark Whitaker came away with a different impression after dining with McCain Sunday night. “He’s running,” Whitaker said. “He’s making all the moves.”)
But what really impressed conference goers was McCain’s marathon session at the hotel casino the previous evening. While most attendees were content to watch the gambling and talk about the two hot topics of conversation… Jonathon Feit* and Igor Finkel, the founders of Citizen Culture magazine, got a quick tutorial in craps from the Arizona senator. They played alongside him as he amassed a sizable pile of chips, then lost all but $200 of it. Still, “he left happy,” Finkel said.”
- The spelling of my name has been corrected.
Everyone knows that I’m not shy — to be an editor, reporter, entrepreneur, etc., and be shy just doesn’t cut it —and I figured, what are the odds that I’ll have another chance to speak with the Senator, especially amid so many reporters at a conference all about media? So…I asked, in between throws of the dice, whether Mr. McCain would be willing to sit with me for a one-on-one interview the next day. He said yes, and then went back to craps.
Gambling with Senator McCain — a jolly, aw-shucks fellow, as humble as we all know he is brave and independent-minded — was hilarious: anytime he made money off of his own throw or someone else’s, he’d rest his drink down, place a hand on the table, point to the man or woman who netted him some cash, and state for the record: “You, Sir [or Ma’am] are a great American!”
The next day, Senator McCain was interviewed by the chief editor of a major American magazine. The senior senator from Arizona was being spoken of as a Presidential contender; he was a muckraker, an agitator, and I ran a small publication that…well, actually, we were fairly similar, except for the number of people who knew our name! When he was through with the interview, and several follow-up questions, a highlight of my career happened, and I instantly understood why he’d been so successful at the game of politics. (When I ran for City Council in 2010, I tried to channel his integrity and centrism.) I heard Senator McCain call out: “Where are Jonathon and Igor?” He remembered us.
Little, ambitious Citizen Culture, a publication that had been dubbed “A New Yorker fora New Generation,” was the only publication to score an exclusive on-the-record conversation with Senator McCain while he was in Puerto Rico. Later, he ran for President, and I’m not sure such an opportunity would have happened again. But I like to fancy that it would have, because John McCain was an ambitious fellow who, I think, saw the same in us — we were birds of an independent feather, and we flocked together. It took one to know one.
Get well, Sir. And when the man in the boat comes — as he does for us all — Godspeed.
Jonathon S. Feit, MBA, MA, is Co-Founder & CEO of Beyond Lucid Technologies, Inc (www.beyondlucid.com), an award-winning health-and-safety technology company that connects emergency responders with care facilities even prior to a patient’s arrival. Prior to BLT, Jonathon served in the White House Office of Management and Budget. Before that, he published Citizen Culture Magazine, was the youngest member of the American Society of Magazine Editors, and served on the faculty of Boston University’s College of Communication. He has been a National Press Club member for over 10 years.
