McCain's Straight Talk bus rolls through Iowa
Source: Reuters
By James Kelleher AMES, Iowa, March 17 (Reuters) - Struggling Republican presidential candidate John McCain dusted off the "Straight Talk Express" bus and rolled through Iowa this week looking for the freewheeling magic that drove his first White House bid. The bus was big, blue and hard to miss on the rural highways of a state McCain bypassed in 2000 before losing the Republican nomination to President George W. Bush. At each stop, he worked hard to recapture the maverick spark from seven years ago. In 2000 he was the unpredictable "Happy Warrior" but this year he is the establishment contender. "Hey, I'm still the same candidate," McCain told reporters in Des Moines on Thursday as he kicked off the tour. "I'm a little older but I'm still having fun, convinced we're doing fine and that we'll win." The four-term Republican senator from Arizona dazzled the media seven years ago with his rolling talkfests. Reporters crowded into the "Straight Talk Express," sitting cross-legged at his feet, perching on the back of chairs and squeezing into impossibly tiny corners to listen. The stream-of-consciousness sessions sometimes lasted hours -- or at least until the bus stopped, allowing another gaggle of reporters to take their place. The bus now is bigger and a little more luxurious but McCain is back on board vowing to answer any and all questions openly and honestly. But the questions, and the political landscape, are different this time. He faces a far bigger field, both in his party and in the Democratic pack. He is 70 years old now and lagging in the polls. Critics say he has changed his positions. George Washington University professor Stephen Hess called the resurrected tour mostly a publicity stunt that will not likely have a big effect on voters. "The Straight Talk Express lost. Why would you re-create a strategy that lost for you last time unless you want to lose again?" Hess asked. "Everybody changes in eight years. It would be almost an unnatural act to come back and do exactly the same thing." ONCE A FRONT RUNNER McCain had been the perceived Republican front runner for 2008 but has been overtaken by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in part because of McCain's staunch support for Bush's unpopular Iraq war policy. A March 3 Newsweek magazine poll showed Giuliani leading McCain among Republican voters by 59 percent to 34 percent. They had been tied in January, before McCain backed Bush's plan to send more troops to Iraq. At a chili lunch at a hotel in Ames, just north of Des Moines, McCain told a crowd of about 250 it would be a disaster if the United States pulled out of Iraq. "Many mistakes have been made in the conduct of this war," McCain said, "but many wars in our history have been mismanaged as well." McCain fielded questions on topics ranging from gay marriage to climate change from port security to health care. He received polite applause, supporting corn-based ethanol for fuel and action on climate change. He won tentative backing from at least one Iowan. Robin Proescholdt, 46, a stay-at-home mom from Marshalltown, said she found McCain's answers on health care issues thin but added, "I'd vote for him." McCain was plagued by some technical gaffes. A microphone popped, startling people, and at one point he misspoke before quickly correcting himself. "The reason Republicans lost the war -- sorry, the last election -- was because of spending," he said. (Additional reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington)
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