Lexington, Va. – Seeking to right a presidential campaign that’s struggling even before it’s officially begun, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona offered a detailed explanation Wednesday of why he supports the Bush administration’s Iraq war plan despite public opposition to the war.
Speaking to a friendly audience of cadets at the Virginia Military Institute, McCain called the war “necessary and just,” echoed White House assertions that things are improving in Iraq and maintained that prematurely withdrawing troops would hand a victory to terrorists and create a vacuum that al-Qaeda and neighboring Iran would try to fill.
He also accused Democrats of political opportunism for passing legislation that sets a deadline for troop withdrawal from Iraq.
“I watched with regret as the House of Representatives voted to deny our troops the support necessary to carry out their new mission,” McCain said. “Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted. What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering.”
McCain is fighting to regain the GOP front-runner status he had before the campaign season began. He trails former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in national polls, though state polls show he’s effectively tied for first place in New Hampshire and South Carolina, which hold key early primaries. A national Gallup Poll released this week put McCain at his lowest support level yet in this election cycle, with only 16 percent to Giuliani’s 38 percent among Republicans and independents who lean Republican.
Public disenchantment with the war that McCain champions has played a role in the erosion of his support. He sparked controversy 10 days ago when he pronounced a Baghdad market he visited safe because of the new U.S. troop-surge strategy, only to be embarrassed by reports that noted the market was safe largely because McCain was accompanied by extraordinarily heavy security, including attack helicopters.
That flap led McCain to delay the official kickoff of his presidential campaign and schedule this VMI speech instead.
In his speech and at a news conference afterward, McCain insisted that he wasn’t worried about how his support for the war would affect his presidential quest.
“Let’s put aside for a moment the small politics of the day. The judgment of history should be the approval we seek, not the temporary favor of the latest public-opinion poll,” McCain said.
McCain said that selling the public on the Iraq war is “very difficult” because the White House stuck too long to a “failed strategy.”
He has long argued for sending more troops to Iraq to stamp out the insurgency and secure cities.
