McCain Prospects Put Iraq on Front of Policy Agenda

It looks like I'm a little ahead of the media spin cycle.

In last night's post, "Security in Iraq: Will Surge Gains Hold?," I wrote "The Iraq war is starting to seep back into election year political calculations."

Now this morning's Los Angeles Times has a story on the new political developments surrounding the war: "McCain Surge Puts Iraq War at Fore":

The growing likelihood that Sen. John McCain will win the Republican presidential nomination has sparked renewed debate between the Democratic front-runners over the Iraq war -- and over who possesses the strongest credentials to challenge a war hero for the duties of commander in chief.

The issue provoked one of the sharpest moments in Thursday's Democratic debate in Los Angeles, as Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York argued that the party's eventual nominee would need sufficient "gravitas" to persuade American voters that he or she can be a strong leader while arguing for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

The jousting continued Friday when a top military advisor to Clinton's rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, ridiculed Clinton's implication that she would offer voters the better credentials.

The advisor, retired Gen. Merrill A. "Tony" McPeak, said in a telephone interview that Obama has "real gravitas, not artificially created, focus-grouped, poll-directed, rehearsed gravitas."

He also said Obama "doesn't go on television and have crying fits; he isn't discovering his voice at the age of 60" -- references to Clinton's much-publicized show of emotion during the New Hampshire primary campaign and her speech after winning the contest in which she declared that she had "found my voice."

So, that's it?

The Democrats, when talking about national security credentials, are weighing which candidate's least likely to break down in tears at news of an assault on America's interests?

Not good...

Here's more from the article:

The battle over who best could press the Democratic case on foreign policy is one of the key ways that Obama and Clinton are trying to distinguish themselves as they campaign for convention delegates in Tuesday's voting in California and more than 20 other states.

Both Clinton and Obama have criticized McCain for his past comments that the United States likely would have to maintain a military presence in Iraq for many years. At Thursday's debate, both offered assurances that they would start troop withdrawals within the first months of their presidencies.

McCain, a vocal supporter of President Bush's so-called surge strategy in Iraq, has charged that the Democrats have been pushing a "false argument" in focusing so much attention on removing troops from Iraq.

Noting that the United States has maintained a lengthy military presence in South Korea, he said during a GOP presidential candidate debate Wednesday near Simi Valley that "we are going to be [in Iraq] for some period of time, but it's American casualties, not American presence" that should be the main concern.

Polls throughout the campaign have shown that Democratic-leaning voters see Clinton as better prepared than Obama to be commander in chief. The survey respondents, even if they disagree with her war vote, also rate her as best equipped to end the war.

But exit polls of voters in states that already have held primaries or caucuses have found that Obama, who was an Illinois state senator in 2002 when he delivered a speech opposing the war, has made up some of that ground. In New Hampshire, Democratic primary voters were split over who they believed was the "strongest leader."

On Iraq, surveys continue to show strong public opposition to the war -- setting up what many Democrats believe is a winning campaign issue.

But, again based on the polls, McCain, a decorated naval aviator who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, appears to pose a challenge for the Democrats: The senator from Arizona scores high marks with voters for candor and his decision to back the troop surge, even when it was unpopular.

In addition, the Democratic Party's got the entire MoveOn.org Iraq surrender establishment to hammer the party's nominee to commit to a precipitous pullout, and the likely resurgence of violence in country.

As I noted yesterday, representative hard-left opinion thinks al Qaeda'a tactic of deploying Down's syndrome suicide bombers is a "brillliant" military adaptation.

Is there any question that left forces want the U.S. to lose the war? They hate the forward projection of American power, and they despise the military, as events up in Berkeley attest.

I'll be happily reassured that this campaign's moving in the right direction after the GOP nomination is wrapped up, and the disgruntled conservative base comes to its senses, lining up behind the GOP standard-bearer.

Time is of the essence. Let's get this campaign rocking with some straight talk!