September 11, 2007 9:21 PM

McCain's day for Day

CLICK HERE for a full story on McCain's trip.

View image Photo by M.E. Sprengelmeyer

If Sen. John McCain needed an energy infusion for his uphill White House bid, he couldn't have asked for any more than he got from 82-year-old retired Air Force Col. Bud Day on Tuesday.

McCain broke with recent political tradition in these years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by scheduling a partisan political rally on Tuesday's anniversary.

But he did it just south of Sioux City, Iowa, at Col. Bud Day Field, an Air Force facility named for his fellow Vietnam prisoner of war and longtime friend.

Day, a Medal of Honor recipient, is one of the most highly-decorated military veterans in U.S. military history, dating back to his service in the Marines during World War II, as an Air Force pilot in the Korean and Vietnam wars, and including his more than five years in prisoner of war camp in Vietnam.

Day bounced off a bus, strode to a stage ahead of McCain and then he made it clear to Tuesday night's crowd that nobody had better question the honor of his former Vietnam cellmate.

"All of you know that character is the thing that you do when nobody is watching. John McCain has been famous for making his own decisions, for making the right decisions, ever since I have known him. Now along the way he has made a couple of kind of goofy decisions, but they were when he was a young sprog at the Naval Academy and was kind of feeling his way around the world..."

Tuesday's appearance was the start of a seven-day "No Surrender" tour for McCain, who is trying to revitalize his bid for the Republican presidential nomination with a two-pronged approach to the touchy issue of Iraq.

* First, he tries to distance himself from the "mismanaged" early years of the war, pointing out that he loudly called for the sort of troop increase that was put in place earlier this year.

* Then he gives a loud defense of the current troop "surge" strategy, saying failure in Iraq would have disasterous consequences.

That's where his current tour's "No Surrender" theme comes from, although some observers also interpret it as McCain's statement of defiance about his own campaign.

All summer long, the one-time front-runner has seen his national standing shrink, as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani leads the national polls, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads the GOP field in the first caucus state, Iowa, and now former Senator Fred Thompson is giving everybody a run for the money.

McCain has been trying to make more noise of late, and he won relatively strong reviews for his performance in last week's debate on Fox News. Now he cranks up the volume on the "No Surrender" theme while surrounded by longtime friends like Day and some of the other fellow military veterans who always seem to energize McCain.

Here's the FULL STORY from today's paper-and-ink version of the Rocky Mountain News.

Tuesday night's event came just hours after McCain took part in a U.S. Senate committee hearing where Iraq war commander, Gen. David Petraeus, gave lawmakers an assessment of how well he thinks the so-called "surge" of troops is working to stabilize Iraq.

Afterwards, we asked McCain about his decision to break a modern day taboo and hold a campaign rally on one of the more sensitive days on the campaign calendar.

Below is the transcript of the exchange:

SPRENGELMEYER: "It was a few years after Sept. 11 when the anniversaries were kind of treated as 'hands-off' in politics. Today, there were a lot of candidates who still stated away. Why did you decide to do a rally on Sept. 11, and do you worry that down the line it could become just another day for campaigning on the trail, instead of a kind of 'hands-off' day?"

MCCAIN: "To start with, we did have a moment of silence in the Senate today. I stopped off at a church and gave my remembrances and prayers for those who died. The important thing about Sept. 11 is that it not be repeated, and if we leave Iraq, then it will be repeated. I can't think of a better way to remember and revere their memories and prevent further tragedies and attacks on the United States than to rally support for what Gen. Petraeus, in his testimony today, (said) was now the central battlefield in the war against terror: Iraq. So I think it's very appropriate that I rally American support for preventing these people following us home, which I believe they will do if they drive us out of Iraq."