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Posted: December 17, 2007 1:20 PM
McCain Hopes High-Profile Endorsements Will Sway Undecided Voters
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Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., may be behind in polls, but he picked up several major endorsements from newspapers and a Senate colleague over the weekend. The Des Moines Register, the Boston Globe, the Portsmouth (N.H.) Herald and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, have endorsed his candidacy. McCain also announced a list of more than 100 generals and admirals supporting his nomination.

Lieberman, who ran as former vice president Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 presidential election and caucuses as a Democrat, broke party ties and said he supports McCain, mostly for his foreign policy plans.

“John McCain is the candidate who can best reunite our country and lead us to victory in the way against Islamist terrorism,” Lieberman said in a statement released by McCain’s campaign, reported Agence France-Presse.

McCain responded to Lieberman’s endorsement with gratitude in a statement on his Web site. “He has stood tall against the prevailing winds on national security and understands why we must succeed in Iraq and in the broader war against radical Islamic extremism,” McCain said of the senator. “He is a principled leader, a good friend and I am proud to have his support.”

Iowa’s Des Moines Register, which also endorsed Democratic candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is supporting McCain because “the iconoclastic senator from Arizona has earned his reputation for straight talk by actually leveling with voters, even at significant political expense.”

With the Iowa caucus less than three weeks away, the Register’s endorsement makes a crucial statement in the tight race. McCain hopes the newspaper endorsements will help him better compete with front-runners such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, all of whom have been polling ahead of him in early voting states and national polls.

“The effect of it is that it will cause many of the undecided voters, which there’s a majority of Republican voters now in this primary are undecided, to have a look at John McCain … Obviously that will help me as we get down in the last few weeks in the Iowa caucuses,” McCain told CBS News.