MEMPHIS/AP – Republican Sen. John McCain says Martin Luther King Jr. “seems a bigger man” than he did 40 years ago on the day of his death.

McCain stood outside the motel where the civil rights leader was slain. The presidential candidate said, “The quality of his character is only more apparent. His good name will be honored as long as the creed of America is honored.”

All three of the remaining presidential candidates marked the anniversary of King’s death. McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to the city where King died. Barack Obama spoke of King in Indiana.

Obama said King “preached the gospel of brotherhood; of equality and justice.”

Back in Memphis in 1998.

* See my article on the 30th anniversary on this blog.