MEET AND GREET-Westlake Village Republican Women Federated President Stephany Walsh and her husband, Pat, greet Republican senator from Arizona John McCain during a garden reception in his honor at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum on June 23. During his five-and-a-half torturous years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam's notorious "Hanoi Hilton," Sen. John McCain and his fellow American captives were often subjected to negative news propaganda meant to break their spirit and convince them that their country had given up hope.

But little by little, according to McCain, a Navy pilot shot down over enemy territory, positive news began filtering through the prison camp by way of recent arrivals. A few of those newcomers talked about Ronald Reagan, then the governor of California, who was speaking out back home about the need to rescue U.S. soldiers from Communist captivity.

During a visit to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley last week for the first time since Reagan's death, McCain said he never forgot the encouragement he received from the man who would one day become president.

"It's a privilege to be here, and I'm very indebted . . . for the invitation to come back and see the place where Americans remember and revere the life and presidency of one of the most visionary and steadfast apostles of freedom, Ronald Reagan," said McCain, who Friday delivered a 30minute-long prepared speech to a packed house at the library's Presidential Learning Center.

During the nationally covered speech, the popular Arizona senator, who once worked as a "foot solider" in the Reagan Revolution, said the GOP is suffering because it is drifting too far from the core values of Reagan Republicanism-mainly, the ideas of limited government and conservative spending.

"Why has our party, the party of small government, lately adopted the practices of our opponents, who believe the bigger the government the better? I'm afraid it's because at times we value our incumbency more than our principles," said McCain, who spoke as part of the library's annual Reagan Forum series, which features leaders from politics, business, media and academia.

"We came to office to reduce the size of government. Lately, we have increased the size of government in order to stay in office," he continued. "And soon, very soon, if we don't remember what we were elected to do, we will lose both our principles and our office. And we will leave as our legacy a mountain of debt and bankrupt entitlement programs that our children's grandchildren will be suffering from long after we have departed this Earth."

A crowd of nearly 800, many of them movers and shakers in local Republican Party committees, came to listen to McCain speak about national issues and to enjoy a post-lecture meal at the recently opened Air Force One Pavilion.

Much of McCain's address focused on his long-running campaign against government corruption and misspending.

"My friends, the best and only lasting answer to the problem of political corruption is a smaller government," he said.

Though the senator didn't appease his fans by saying he would run for the presidency in 2008- he's expected to make that announcement after the November elections-he did entertain them with an issue-focused speech peppered with good humor.

In talking about Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the 70-year-old McCain quipped, "You know we share a lot of attributes."

On his reputation as a war hero: "It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to intercept a surfaceto-air missile."

His sentences were often interrupted by loud rounds of applause from the largely proMcCain audience.

The white-haired senator, who walked up to the podium accompanied by former First Lady Nancy Reagan, wasted no time in expressing his deep admiration for "the Gipper."

"When I was first elected to Congress, I was one of the many newly elected members who claimed to be disciples of Ronald Reagan," he said. "I'm as proud of that distinction today as I was then."

As he promised he would before taking the podium, McCain touched on the hot-button issue of illegal immigration. A day earlier he'd been on the floor of the Senate, urging his 99 compatriots to pass the comprehensive immigration reform bill.

"We should encourage these people to emerge from the shadows of this underground economy, distinguish themselves from those who came here illegally to threaten our security, pay fines, back taxes, learn English and abide by our laws by going to the back of the line for legal status," said McCain, who co-authored the immigration bill currently under consideration by Congress and who favors a guest-worker program.

He even shared how he believed the library's namesake would view the issue.

"Ronald Reagan never had a problem with someone coming here to get a piece of the American dream," McCain said. "As long as people pledged their sincere allegiance to that sublime ideal, Reagan did not denounce them as aliens, he called them his countrymen."

McCain, who some have dismissed as a viable candidate because of his age-much like they did Reagan-strongly advocated fixing Social Security and staying the course in Iraq.

"They fight to express an irrational hatred for the progress of our ideals," he said of the terrorists, "a hatred that has fallen time and time again to the armies of courage and the courage of the righteous. We will never surrender. They will."

Before ending his speech, McCain made one last hopeful prediction that Reagan's unshakable patriotism, courage and optimism could be restored among today's elected officials.

"When walls were all I had for a world, I learned about a man whose courage and love gave me hope in a desolate place. His faith honored us, as it honored all Americans and all freedom-loving people," McCain concluded. "So I say to my party, to my friends on the right and left, let us honor him by holding his faith as our own, and let us, too, tear down walls to freedom. That, my friend, is what Americans do when they believe in themselves."