DOVER, N.H. (AP) – Republican presidential hopeful John McCain did some grass-roots campaigning in a grand setting Sunday, attending a house party at a mansion built for one of his predecessors in the U.S. Senate.
“Thank you for welcoming us all into this middle income tract home,” McCain jokingly told hosts Dan and Jennifer Philbrick, who restored the former home of U.S. Sen. Edward Rollins, a Republican who served in the late 1800s.
“Some of my Democratic friends want every American to have a home,” McCain said from the steps of a broad stairway in the foyer, which was decorated with handpainted murals of pastoral scenes. “I want every American to have a home like this.”
McCain was starting his second day of a three-day trip to the state where he soundly defeated George W. Bush in the 2000 Republican primary before losing the nomination. Though he even trotted out some of the same jokes he liked to tell eight years ago, McCain reminded the crowd that the nation and its challenges have changed tremendously since then.
Acknowledging that the war in Iraq has been disappointing, frustrating and sad, he urged his audience to give President Bush’s plan a chance. Instead of a strategy of “kill people and leave,” American forces are having some success in restoring normal lives to the Iraqis, he said.
“Couldn’t we give this strategy a chance?” he said, noting that Democrats have offered nearly two dozen proposals on withdrawing troops from Iraq. “Couldn’t we sit down as patriotic Americans and stop some of this bitter partisanship that goes on in Washington?”
A question about abortion provided an opportunity for McCain to seperate himself from other Republicans seeking the nomination.
“I am a pro-life person. That’s been a solid 24-year record,” he said. “I have not changed my position.”
“I have been an advocate for human rights – having been deprived of them for a period in my life – from Burma to Bosnia to China to Cuba, and I believe human rights also extend to that of the unborn,” said McCain, who endured years of torture and deprivation as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani supports abortion, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has faced criticism for switching his position on the issue.
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