BRAVE FACE OF GOP’S FUTURE
Lions of Congress, military veterans and Vice President Mike Pence took the stage Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention — but it was a 25-year-old would-be congressman who stole the show.
Madison Cawthorn, a North Carolina GOP candidate on track to become the youngest person in modern history elected to Congress, delivered impassioned remarks on overcoming adversity and the need for bipartisan cooperation.
“At 20, I thought about giving up,” said Cawthorn, who at 18 was left paralyzed in a car crash. “However, I knew I could still make a difference. My accident gave me new eyes to see, and new ears to hear.”
At a personal crossroads, Cawthorn, a real-estate investment CEO, opted for service over despair.
“At 20, I made a choice,” he said. “In 2020, our country has a choice. We can give up on the American idea, or we can work together to make our imperfect union more perfect.
“I choose to fight for the future, to seize the high ground and retake the Shining City on a Hill.”
Cawthorn sent shock waves through Washington in June when he unexpectedly won the GOP primary runoff for the congressional seat left vacant when Mark Meadows resigned to become President Trump’s chief of staff.
Trump endorsed Cawthorn’s rival, Lynda Bennett, at the urging of Meadows and his wife — but Cawthorn nevertheless backed Trump on Wednesday.
“While the radical left wants to dismantle, defund and destroy, Republicans under President Trump’s leadership want to rebuild, restore and renew,” he said.
Still, Cawthorn made a call for the rival parties to push each other toward greatness, not drag each other down.
“To liberals, I say let’s have a conversation. Be a true liberal. Listen to other ideas and let the best ones prevail,” he said. “And to conservatives, I say let’s define what we support and win the argument in areas like health care and on the environment.”
At the end of his speech, Cawthorn was assisted in rising from his wheelchair to stand against a walker (left).
“I say to Americans who love our country — young and old — be a radical for freedom. Be a radical for liberty,” he said. “Be a radical for our republic, for which I stand, one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”
Cawthorn’s stirring testimony to fight in the face of adversity came on a night themed around America as “Land of Heroes.”
The packed roster of speakers included members of law-enforcement and several military veterans who continued their service at home: Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Long Island Rep. Lee Zeldin.
Ernst, once in the running to be then-candidate Trump’s veep pick in 2016, spoke of the president delivering aid for the Hawkeye State following a devastating derecho windstorm this month.
Zeldin praised Trump for delivering PPE, ventilators and hospital beds for New York in the darkest days of the pandemic in April.
The evening was capped by Pence formally accepting renomination at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, the 1812 bombardment of which inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the poem that became “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Trump will formally accept renomination Thursday night at the conclusion of the RNC.