Recent Events Strengthen McCain’s Last-Minute Iowa Pitch

Over the summer when John McCain announced he would not participate in the Ames Straw Poll fundraiser for the Republican Party of Iowa, it was not difficult to find Iowans who proclaimed the Arizona senator’s campaign dead in the water. Recent events, including newspaper endorsements and an assassination on the other side of the globe, have prompted some Iowans to give McCain a second look.

Marion resident Mary McEniry didn’t have to drive far to attend Thursday’s campaign stop in northeast Cedar Rapids, but she also doesn’t consider herself a staunch supporter — yet.

“I’m leaning toward McCain,” she confided after the event. “I’m going to all the candidate events and trying to decide. With the [Benazir Bhutto] assassination today, that just made me think that we need somebody really strong, and he’s the one.”

The assassination of Pakistan’s former prime minister was at the top of McCain’s list when he offered his prepared remarks.

“Why do we care about Pakistan?” he asked the 200 or so supporters gathered at Granite City, a Cedar Rapids restaurant and brewery. “We care for several reasons. One of them is because of the fact that they have nuclear weapons and a nuclear arsenal. Another is … [Pakistan] borders on Afghanistan, which is now seeing something of a resurgence of the Taliban. There are parts of Pakistan…that the Taliban are using as bases to launch attacks into Afghanistan where young Americans are in harm’s way.”

The situation in Pakistan, as in the vast majority of the Middle East, he said, is “complicated,” and he cited the influx of “radical Islamic extremism” in the nation’s military, “questionable” tactics employed by the Pakistan intelligence community and the “rocky relationship” between India and Pakistan because of Kashmir as examples.

“Now we have this situation where there is significant unrest in cities, there’s a popular uprising and outcry because of this assassination,” he said. “The question you have to ask yourself is ‘Who wins and who loses in an event such as this?’ I’ll tell ya who wins and that’s radical Islamic extremists — the Jihadists, because the more unsettlement there is and the more riots and the more damage there is, the more they gain their objectives to turn Pakistan into a radical Islamic nation.”

McCain said the first thing the United States needs to do is to make sure that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are secure. The second thing is to ensure Pakistan’s people move forward with their plans for an election.

“Friends, I want to talk to you about a lot of other issues,” he said. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed. Let’s hope that diplomacy works. Let’s hope that the Pakistanis will move forward in a democratic and free and open way and give their people the kind of government they need.”

Sara Butterworth, a Coralville optometrist and longtime supporter, made the drive to Granite City in Cedar Rapids for the sole purpose of meeting McCain and listening to him speak.

“I was dating a Marine back in 1999, and he was the first one to introduce me to John McCain,” she said. “The Marine is long gone, but I’ve been a McCain supporter ever since then.”

Butterworth said the trip was well worth it and that McCain’s words on both domestic and international policies solidified her decision. She plans to caucus for McCain on Jan. 3, with her primary focus being the issue of health care.

“As an optometrist, certainly health care is very important to me,” she said. “I’m not only a health care provider, but also a health care consumer. So, I feel like I see both sides of it and, to me, that’s a very important issue facing our country today.”

Mary Ellwood and her husband, Georgia residents visiting relatives in Iowa over the holiday, were both excited and shocked to learn that McCain would be visiting the restaurant they’d chosen for lunch.

“We had no idea he was going to be here or that any of this was going to happen,” Ellwood said. “It was a great opportunity that I wasn’t expecting.”

Ellwood, an employee at Boeing in Macon, Ga., where she builds C-17 Globemaster cargo planes, called the meeting serendipitous because McCain had cast a vote in the U.S. Senate that she wanted explained.

“In the news clips for Boeing … they let us know what’s going on in the Senate,” she said. “McCain voted against it and I want to know why. It’s a wonderful plane and the military needs it. His response to me, when I asked him why just a moment ago, was: ‘Don’t need it. Can’t afford it.’”

In response to Ellwood’s question about why McCain voted not to purchase C-17s, he indicated that the Defense Department and the President hadn’t requested it and that the plane wasn’t on the Pentagon’s unfunded priority list.

“I know that’s what he said,” Ellwood responded when reminded of McCain’s comments. “But I know better… the planes were requested and are needed.”

The response, that included a McCain caveat that the C-17 was a “very good weapon system” and that “Boeing does a great job,” was not satisfactory to Ellwood, who said that she “does not” and “will not” support McCain.

“He doesn’t support my plane — and that’s my livelihood,” she said as her husband, who helps manufacture the much older C-5 Galaxy planes, nodded in agreement.

The good news for McCain is that the Ellwoods return to Georgia Saturday and won’t be caucusing.