INDIAN WELLS, Calif. -- Anticipating a report to Congress next week on progress in the war in Iraq, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) offered a forceful defense Saturday of his stick-it-out approach at a state Republican convention still reverberating from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's warning that the party must move to the political center or risk irrelevancy.
With less than four months before absentee ballots go out for California's Feb. 5 presidential primary, McCain was the only presidential contender to speak at this weekend's semiannual convention at the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa.
State GOP Chairman Ron Nehring dismissed the lack of presidential candidates as insignificant, but delegates said it contributed to a sense that the state party lacks energy and focus.
"I'd hate to think they've written us off, but actions speak louder than words," said Justin Stoner, 36, a delegate from Visalia and a district representative for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Visalia). "Maybe they feel like they have to build momentum in those traditional early primary states. Maybe they feel like there's not much to gain in California."
McCain's luncheon speech covered familiar ground, but his words were more forcefully crafted than some of his earlier speeches because, he told reporters, the Senate will be debating the war after Gen. David H. Petraeus' planned report to Congress this week on the effect of the "surge" strategy in Iraq.
McCain told reporters that he limited his speech to the war to stress how seriously he views the debate. "It's going to be a seminal time because we will make a decision on whether to set a date for withdrawal or allow Gen. Petraeus' strategy to have an opportunity to succeed," he said.
Earlier, he warned fellow Republicans that a U.S. withdrawal would spark a broadened Middle East conflict and "hand a victory to the radicals in control of Iran."
While acknowledging that "the war in Iraq has not gone well, and the American people have grown sick and tired of it," McCain said U.S. forces must remain in Iraq until the country is stabilized.
"I, too, have been made sick at heart by the many mistakes made by civilian and military commanders and the terrible price we paid for them," he said. "But we cannot react to these mistakes by embracing a course of action that will be an even greater mistake, a mistake of colossal historical proportions."
