Bradley in DC
11-19-2007, 12:14 AM
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1107/6953.html
Tom Kean endorsing McCain in new push
By: Mike Allen
Nov 18, 2007 08:57 PM EST
The presidential candidate will try to focus New Hampshire voters on national security beyond Iraq.
Thomas H. Kean, who chaired the 9/11 Commission, will endorse Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president on Monday as part of a high-stakes new push by the campaign to focus voters on national security, campaign sources tell Politico.
Kean’s name became synonymous with national security issues during heavy news coverage of the commission’s report in 2004.
Kean will help McCain make the case to voters in New Hampshire, his must-win state, that strength on national security encompasses a lot more than the divisive issue of Iraq, the sources said.
McCain began laying out that argument Sunday night during a major address at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, N.H., where the Vietnam War veteran said in prepared remarks that “on matters of war and peace, I offer Americans my experience, my personal familiarity with the tragedy of war, deep involvement in all of the national security issues of the last two decades and steadfast conviction that America cannot afford to relinquish its leadership of the world.”
“There comes a time when a president can no longer rely on briefing books and power points, when the experts and advisers have all weighed in, when the sum total of one's life becomes the foundation from which he or she makes the decisions that determine the course of history,” McCain said in his text. “No other candidate has my experience or the judgment it informs.”
Kean, a former New Jersey governor, is scheduled to appear with McCain at a news conference in Boston on Monday afternoon. The campaign said Sunday there would be “a major national security endorsement,” but did not say who it will be.
McCain’s dilemma has been that conservative voters have been peeved with him about his push for balanced immigration reform, and independents and moderates have been distrustful because of his support for President Bush on Iraq.
Now, the campaign has a plan to try to transcend those polarizing issues. The adviser said Kean “underscores McCain’s greatest strength,” both because of the former governor’s national security credentials, and because Kean is “a Republican who wasn’t afraid to talk back to Bush.”
“You have to build the case that it’s not just Iraq,” a campaign adviser said. “It’s a broader set of national and homeland security issues that voters need to consider, and think about how the next president will handle those issues.”
President Bush named Kean — with former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton as his vice chairman — to head the bipartisan panel charged with investigating the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
Kean was later chairman of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, created with private funds to continue the commission’s work.
Kean is currently a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and chairman of TNK consulting. One of his sons, Tom Kean, is a New Jersey state senator.
The latest Real Clear Politics averages of public polls have McCain in third place nationally and in New Hampshire, fifth place in Iowa, and fourth place in South Carolina, Florida and Michigan.
The adviser said McCain will keep “a nominal presence” in Iowa for now, but that he does not expect to do well there.
“If we don’t win New Hampshire, it’s lights out,” the adviser said. “If we do, we have the momentum story. So our goal is very straightforward. We’re going to send McCain directly to the voters in New Hampshire. Every time we do that, we’re going up in points.”
In McCain’s text for New Hampshire last night, he said: “My friends, we are at last nearing the moment in this long election season when something important happens: The voters get to speak. Until now, the race has been defined by political professionals and pundits, who talk about polls, and money, and ads, and endorsements, and who won debates, and who attacked whom, and all the things that make these campaigns interesting to Washington, and less so to you. Now it's your turn.”
Tom Kean endorsing McCain in new push
By: Mike Allen
Nov 18, 2007 08:57 PM EST
The presidential candidate will try to focus New Hampshire voters on national security beyond Iraq.
Thomas H. Kean, who chaired the 9/11 Commission, will endorse Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president on Monday as part of a high-stakes new push by the campaign to focus voters on national security, campaign sources tell Politico.
Kean’s name became synonymous with national security issues during heavy news coverage of the commission’s report in 2004.
Kean will help McCain make the case to voters in New Hampshire, his must-win state, that strength on national security encompasses a lot more than the divisive issue of Iraq, the sources said.
McCain began laying out that argument Sunday night during a major address at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, N.H., where the Vietnam War veteran said in prepared remarks that “on matters of war and peace, I offer Americans my experience, my personal familiarity with the tragedy of war, deep involvement in all of the national security issues of the last two decades and steadfast conviction that America cannot afford to relinquish its leadership of the world.”
“There comes a time when a president can no longer rely on briefing books and power points, when the experts and advisers have all weighed in, when the sum total of one's life becomes the foundation from which he or she makes the decisions that determine the course of history,” McCain said in his text. “No other candidate has my experience or the judgment it informs.”
Kean, a former New Jersey governor, is scheduled to appear with McCain at a news conference in Boston on Monday afternoon. The campaign said Sunday there would be “a major national security endorsement,” but did not say who it will be.
McCain’s dilemma has been that conservative voters have been peeved with him about his push for balanced immigration reform, and independents and moderates have been distrustful because of his support for President Bush on Iraq.
Now, the campaign has a plan to try to transcend those polarizing issues. The adviser said Kean “underscores McCain’s greatest strength,” both because of the former governor’s national security credentials, and because Kean is “a Republican who wasn’t afraid to talk back to Bush.”
“You have to build the case that it’s not just Iraq,” a campaign adviser said. “It’s a broader set of national and homeland security issues that voters need to consider, and think about how the next president will handle those issues.”
President Bush named Kean — with former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton as his vice chairman — to head the bipartisan panel charged with investigating the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
Kean was later chairman of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, created with private funds to continue the commission’s work.
Kean is currently a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and chairman of TNK consulting. One of his sons, Tom Kean, is a New Jersey state senator.
The latest Real Clear Politics averages of public polls have McCain in third place nationally and in New Hampshire, fifth place in Iowa, and fourth place in South Carolina, Florida and Michigan.
The adviser said McCain will keep “a nominal presence” in Iowa for now, but that he does not expect to do well there.
“If we don’t win New Hampshire, it’s lights out,” the adviser said. “If we do, we have the momentum story. So our goal is very straightforward. We’re going to send McCain directly to the voters in New Hampshire. Every time we do that, we’re going up in points.”
In McCain’s text for New Hampshire last night, he said: “My friends, we are at last nearing the moment in this long election season when something important happens: The voters get to speak. Until now, the race has been defined by political professionals and pundits, who talk about polls, and money, and ads, and endorsements, and who won debates, and who attacked whom, and all the things that make these campaigns interesting to Washington, and less so to you. Now it's your turn.”