Iraq Now Central to McCain Campaign, But Not to Voters

Dec. 22, 2007 — -- It was getting late on a day that had already run long, but Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was pumped up. He stood in the middle of the 19th century Town Hall in Weare, N.H., with about 100 of the local citizenry around him. Earlier, he had announced the endorsement of Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). This was a good day and good days are like adrenaline.

In an expansive mood, McCain danced from topic to topic in his opening remarks. He talked about climate change ("So look, my friends, we have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions"). He talked about health care (" What we need to do in America is to reduce and eliminate the inflation, the dramatically rising health care costs that no longer make health care affordable or available for Americans.") Then he spoke about Iraq.

"My friends, things are better in Iraq," he said, pacing back and forth, striving for eye contact. "I just want to tell you the facts. After our initial victory, I went to Iraq. I saw that we had the wrong strategy. I came back and criticized (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld, said that strategy was doomed to failure, we had to fix it, that we had to have a new strategy and that strategy is the one (Gen. David) Petraeus is using now. And I am the only one running for president that said that. And I want you to go to a town hall meeting of those I am competing with for the nomination and ask them what they said at the time. They said nothing."

With the apparent success of the troop surge -- at least for now -- McCain is eager to embrace the issue. Last spring and into the summer, before violence in Iraq began to ebb, Iraq was hurting him with voters. His Republican rivals also supported the war and the surge, but a lot more quietly.

"McCain soon found himself the last man standing," writes Chris Jones in the January 2008 issue of Esquire. "That would cost him and he knew it."

Now McCain is reminding people that when the idea of adding troops was unpopular, he was an early and vocal supporter of the strategy.