Tom Horne, Arizona superintendent of public instruction, is a delegate to the Republican National Convention.

Other articles by Tom Horne:

Crowd's emotion contagious Arts education helps create well-rounded students McCain, Palin get it: Earmarks encourage waste Third Annual State of Education Removing the incentive is the wrong thing to do

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Most politicians, accepting their party's nomination, describe their party as possessing all the virtue and the opposing party as possessing all the vice.

Not John McCain. He was as tough Thursday night on the Republicans as on the Democrats for putting their personal interests above those of the country and for spending taxpayer money on things that are not needed while citizens are having trouble paying their mortgages.

When he says he will veto any pork- and earmark-laden bill that comes to him, I believe him. And that could start a mindset of frugality badly needed in Washington.

McCain has a record of crossing party lines and working with Democrats when he thought that was in the country's interest.

This has cost him within his party. As he puts it, he has the scars to prove it. Obama, for all his talent, has no such record. He has been a party-line Democrat.

I have supported McCain from the beginning because he is an independent thinker. That means that everyone gets mad at him at one time or another. But you know that no one will ever dictate to him and that he will always do what he thinks is right for our country.

In his speech Thursday night, he added a new dimension to this analysis. He acknowledges that he is often called a maverick, sometimes as praise, sometimes not.

As a young man, he was also a maverick. He was his own man, and he was primarily thinking of himself. Then, as a prisoner of war, he was beaten so badly that he broke, and almost died. He was saved by other prisoners. He learned that life was not about himself, but about others. He was no longer his own man, but his country's man.

His message was that if you don't like the way things are going, do something about it. Join the armed forces; become a teacher; save a child (as he did by adopting an orphan from Bangladesh); feed a hungry person; or run for public office.

As someone who took an 80 percent salary cut to work at my current job and never had a minute's regret, this had resonance for me.

As upsetting as this might be for objectivists, I believe deeply in McCain's fundamental message: Life's greatest satisfactions come from serving a cause greater than oneself.