If more evidence was needed that the 2008 presidential campaign is hitting full stride months ahead of schedule, here it is:

The political arm of the liberal organization Moveon.org launched television advertisements Wednesday that assail Arizona Sen. John McCain, a top-tier prospect for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, over his stance on the Iraq war.

Plans for the television ad campaign were announced last week by Moveon.org Poltitical Action, a federal political action committee, and will cost an estimated $250,000. The ads are airing in television markets in Iowa and New Hampshire, which respectively will hold the first caucuses and primary of the 2008 nomination season next January. They also will appear on cable television in New York and Washington, D.C.

Specifically, the ads take McCain to task for supporting President Bush’s plan to increase U.S. troop strength in Iraq. The move, long advocated by McCain, is aimed at quelling sectarian violence that is greatly destabilizing that war-torn nation and threatening to turn into an all-out civil war.

But the war in general and the troop buildup in particular are opposed by most Democratic politicians and liberal activists.

The ad describes the proposed troop buildup as “McCain’s idea” and frequently pictures the Arizona senator alongside Bush, whose poor job approval ratings are attributed mainly to public opposition to the Iraq war.

“The McCain plan to escalate: going from bad to worse,” a narrator intones in the ad.

The ad echoes criticism aimed at McCain — who is polling strongly among GOP hopefuls — by Democrats such as former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, the party’s 2004 vice presidential nominee. A declared candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and avowed Iraq war opponent, Edwards has taken to referring to the administration proposal as “the McCain Doctrine.”

McCain has acknowledged that his support for a troop increase in Iraq carries risks for his all-but-announced White House bid. While he has long supported beefing up the U.S. military presence in Iraq, he has said a so-called “surge” needs to be matched with a change in strategy in Iraq that would include requiring that nation’s fledgling government to meet new benchmarks.

“The presence of additional coalition forces would allow the Iraqi government to do what it cannot accomplish today on its own: impose its rule throughout the country,” McCain said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Jan. 12.

McCain’s campaign told the Associated Press last week — when news of the ads surfaced — that Moveon.org was an “out-of-the-mainstream organization that has a long history of airing inflammatory material.”

McCain does not stand alone in the potential Republican field as a supporter of the administration’s position. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who say they are exploring candidacies, also back Bush on the troop increase.

But Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, who also is considering a bid, opposes increasing American troop strength in Iraq as counter-productive. And Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, an independent-minded Republican who also is considering a White House bid, has excoriated the Bush administration over the policy.

Hagel on Wednesday was one of three senators who introduced a non-binding resolution that says it is “not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq.”

Hagel sponsored the resolution along with Delaware Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and says he is a candidate for his party’s presidential nomination, and Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, who chairs the Armed Services Committee.

Biden joins other Democratic hopefuls in opposing the troop increase, which they say is tantamount to an “escalation” of the war.

© 2006 Congressional Quarterly

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