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.

"I'd rather lose the campaign than lose the war," he often says at town hall-style events.

That's the image his campaign is promoting: John McCain, the man who stood by his principles, took heat for it and has turned out to be right.

The former Navy pilot -- he's the only veteran in the GOP race -- is also using his military background to distinguish himself from his rivals and burnish his national security credentials.

McCain is playing to and playing up that experience. In South Carolina, where an estimated 400,000 veterans live, he often holds campaign events at VFW halls and American Legion posts. At every campaign stop, he points out and thanks the elderly guy with the cap or jacket identifying him as a vet. He often mentions the bracelet he wears with the name and photo of Army Specialist Matthew Stanle. Stanley, 22, was killed in Iraq a year ago. His mother gave the bracelet she had worn to McCain at a campaign event in New Hampshire.

Earlier this month, McCain was endorsed by 100 former admirals and generals. At the press conference in Columbia, S.C., four of the endorsers -- ex-Navy admirals -- literally stood behind him.

Even when he talks about waterboarding -- McCain says it's torture and should be explicitly banned -- it is a reminder to voters that the man talking about it is a genuine war hero and himself a victim of torture at the hands of the Vietnamese. At the GOP debate in Florida, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney declined to say whether he would ban waterboarding.

McCain turned to Romney and teed off.

"Well, Governor, I'm astonished that you haven't found out what waterboarding is," McCain said sharply.

"I know what waterboarding is, Senator," Romney fired back.

"Then I'm astonished that you would think such a torture would be inflicted on anyone who … we (hold) captive and anyway could believe that's not torture. It's a violation of the Genevea Conventions. It's in violation of existing law." Translation: I know what I am talking about. You don't.

On the stump, McCain is no longer reluctant to talk about his five-and-a-half years in a Vietnam prison camp, athough he steers away from details about his own mistreatment. His campaign just released a television commericial in which he recounts an episode in a North Vietnamese prison camp one Christmas when one of his guards loosened his shackles and later sketched the sign of the cross in the dirt floor.

In the video, which starts with grainy black-and-white footage of a young Lt. McCain in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" camp, McCain says that the guard's Christmas gesture bolstered his faith in human nature.

"I will never forget no matter where you are, no matter how difficult the circumstances, there will always be someone who will pick you up," McCain narrates. "May you and your family have a blessed Christmas and Happy Holidays."

It's the McCain version of the political Christmas ads started by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

If Iraq is a problem now for McCain, it's because the success of the surge, ironically, has diminished the importance of the issue to many voters. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll reported that 24% of adults ranked "the economy and jobs" as their greatest issue in deciding who to vote for. Twenty-three percent said Iraq. A month earlier, the same poll found 29% ranked Iraq as their highest concern and 14% cited the economy and jobs.

And to many Republican voters, immigration remains a hot-button issue, the other issue that hurt McCain in the early days of the campaign.

On the day of the Lieberman endorsement, the first question McCain was asked in the question-and-answer session was about illegal immigration. In response to these questions, and they come up frequently, McCain insists he "got the message." He declares himself committed to "sealing the border."

But he is still perceived by some as soft on illegal immigation -- in the short-hand of the anti-immigration movement, of being in favor of "amnesty" because he backed the failed immigration bill that would have established a path to so-called earned citizenship.

As much as McCain would like now to focus on Iraq, many voters have other things on their minds.