Seeing Progress in Iraq, McCain Hopes for Credit
By MARC SANTORA
Published: November 10, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/us/politics/10mccain.html?ex=1352350800&en=471f363f14c78b74&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss<<snip>>
Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, is making his early advocacy of the troop increase and his push for a change in strategy a central theme of his presidential campaign. He is using it to distance himself from the Bush administration, whose handling of the war he regularly denounces, and from his Republican rivals, none of whom, he says, displayed the leadership, courage or knowledge necessary to win in Iraq.
“I was the only one, the only candidate for president of the United States on either side” who fought to change course by providing more troops, he told voters in Iowa this week.
“I did everything in my power to try and change that strategy,” he said, referring to the course originally set by President Bush. “I was severely criticized by other Republicans for being disloyal. I said we had to have the strategy we are using now.”
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But he said that just as he had taken blame for the failures of the war, he would ask voters to recognize where he deserves credit.
When Senator Sam Brownback, the Kansas Republican who recently ended his own bid for the presidential nomination and who had initially opposed the troop increase, endorsed Mr. McCain in Iowa on Wednesday, he said he had been wrong and Mr. McCain right. He even referred to the stepped-up effort as the “McCain surge.”
But in highlighting the successes of the surge, Mr. McCain is walking a fine line, since Iraq has more often than not served as a graveyard for optimism.