Iraq Success Boosts John McCain, But Will It Ultimately Burn Him?

North Star Writers Group ^ | March 24, 2008 | Jamie Weinstein

[Invisigoth]

On April 11, 2007, Arizona Senator John McCain gave a major speech on the Iraq War at the Virginia Military Institute. When he took the stage at VMI, the Iraq troop surge had yet to be fully implemented.

Some questioned whether McCain's strong and early support for President Bush's surge policy – labeled by some the "McCain Surge" as result of the senator's early advocacy of the tactic – when the American people were becoming dissatisfied with the country's involvement in Iraq would doom his presidential campaign. During the speech, McCain addressed this criticism head on.

"Will this nation's elected leaders make the politically hard but strategically vital decision to give General Petraeus our full support and do what is necessary to succeed in Iraq?" McCain asked. "Or will we decide to take advantage of the public's frustration, accept defeat and hope that whatever the cost to our security, the politics of defeat will work out better for us than our opponents? For my part, I would rather lose a campaign than a war."

[Brilliant]

Two things need to happen for Iraq to cement a McCain victory: 1) US deaths continue to decline, 2) Iraqis begin exporting vast amounts of oil, putting noticeable downward pressure on oil prices before the election.

[USS Alaska]

While I'll vote for mcapin, I'm not a real fan. I will, however, give him credit for standing up for the surge when it's outcome was very much in doubt.

I would rather lose a campaign than lose the war. Spoken like a true American.

[elhombrelibre]

And he said that he’d rather lose the campaign than the war when not everyone believed it was possible to win it. In fact, according to nearly all Liberals it was another Vietnam at best or the Russian front at the extreme.