A McCain Surge?
BARNES, FRED
A McCain Surge? Defending the Iraq war is his best shot. by Fred Barnes Senator John McCain's speech last week on winning in Iraq earned high marks, at least from conservatives. One result was an...
...And then he whispered to me not to worry [and said], 'We can win this fight...
...Defeat...
...And McCain should be eager to bolster Bush so he can depart the White House with a strong finishing kick...
...Asked in February by Public Opinion Strategies if they "support finishing the job in Iraq, that is, keeping the troops there until the Iraqi government can maintain control and provide security for its people," the public goes along by 57 percent to 41 percent...
...We saw it in New Hampshire in 2000 when he drew large and adoring crowds, gained more than 20 percentage points in a matter of days, and roared past George W. Bush to win the New Hampshire primary...
...McCain's role in this narrative is that he's backing Bush, partly for crass political reasons...
...The sailor asked McCain to visit him...
...To say this storyline is outdated, wrongheaded, and defeatist is putting it mildly...
...When a president finishes his second term on a low note—as Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson, and Clinton did—the nominee of his party tends to lose the next presidential election...
...What were they celebrating...
...Success isn't guaranteed, but the stumbles and setbacks of the past should not distract us from what is being achieved now...
...But they do mark the end of the downward drift of his candidacy and improve his prospects of gaining the support of conservatives—the two things McCain needed most...
...There's a very telling poll question, often cited by McCain, that touches on this...
...Now, by keeping a relentless focus on Iraq, McCain has a chance to do something more significant than criticize Democrats...
...No Democrat has stepped forward to explain why the new strategy, bolstered by the "surge" of fresh troops, has come too late in Iraq and why it's bound to fail...
...his highly publicized trip to Baghdad and Anbar province, Iraq's major trouble spots...
...No one doubts his sincerity or his commitment to the war...
...They don't want to concede that success in Iraq is even arguable...
...McCain's Iraq speech drew enormous attention because it followed Fred Barnes is executive editor of The Weekly Standard...
...It goes like this: The war in Iraq is all but lost as Bush pursues the same hopeless strategy he has for four years, the only difference now being his deployment of more troops...
...But McCain has steadied his campaign at a time when his foes are stumbling...
...The current narrative, insisted on by Democrats and echoed in the media, encourages opposition to the war and could, if it lingers into 2008, doom McCain's presidential bid...
...For one thing, Bush remains reasonably popular among the Republicans who will choose the 2008 nominee...
...Rob-bins is the wounded Navy SEAL he'd first met in Germany...
...A positive note like that is, of course, the last thing Democrats want to hear...
...And his future in the Republican race looks brighter than it has in months...
...We can win this fight.'" Democrats refuse to debate the possibility of victory...
...He can change how the war in Iraq is being perceived here at home...
...It makes no sense for McCain to emphasize his differences with the president today...
...A lost war, prolonged by Bush, with American troops still suffering casualties— they think that's their best issue and their hope for winning the White House and keeping control of Congress in 2008...
...But it's had staying power...
...The press is bent on goading McCain into doing this, but it's simply not in his political interest...
...So McCain needs Bush to leave office having achieved some success in Iraq and thus having gained in popularity...
...Nothing like that is happening now...
...And at the same time his chief opponents for the Republican presidential nomination hit bumps in the road: Rudy Giuliani over his support for taxpayer-funded abortions, Mitt Rom-ney because of his seemingly innocent but exaggerated claim to have been a lifelong hunter...
...In sharp contrast, a more honest nar-rative—the McCain narrative—goes like this: Thanks to a new strategy of counterinsurgency led by General David Petraeus and more combat troops, we now have a chance to win in Iraq...
...In his speech last week, McCain punctuated this point with a story about a Navy SEAL, shot in the eye in Iraq, whom he encountered in a military hospital in Germany...
...We know what a full-blown McCain moment looks like...
...The speech included what for McCain was unusually cutting criticism of Democrats...
...Even taken together, these haven't created a McCain moment in the Republican campaign...
...McCain has made himself a better candidate by embracing the Iraq war as the centerpiece of his campaign...
...Come 2008, McCain is going to need something from Bush...
...When I entered his room and approached his bedside, he struggled with great difficulty to sit up, stiffened his body as if he were trying to stand at attention, grasped my hand tightly and wouldn't let go," McCain said...
...Surrender...
...The day after his Iraq speech, McCain visited Bush and Secretary of State Condo-leezza Rice at the White House...
...President Bush has tried to do this but hasn't come close to pulling it off...
...But he spent just as much time that day with Petty Officer First Class Mark Robbins at the naval hospital in Bethesda outside Washington...
...Right now, Bush needs McCain to keep pressing the argument for victory in Iraq...
...One result was an immediate fourfold increase in McCain's online fundraising, though he'd made no special appeal...
...Another was that his once close ties to the mainstream media continued to fray, which may improve his standing among conservatives...
...Bush's approval rating, by the way, rose from 34 percent to 38 percent in a Gallup poll last week...
...Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes were counted" to impose a timetable for troop withdrawals from Iraq, he said...
Vol. 12 • April 2007 • No. 30
