With Victory in Wisconsin, McCain Is Talking Like a Nominee

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The Candidates React: McCain

After clinching the Wisconsin primary, Senator John McCain speaks to supporters in Ohio, one of the next electoral battlegrounds.

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"We're in this game for the long term," said Rollins, who was director of Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign.

McCain will spend much of the next three days in Ohio, though he will also attend fundraising events in Illinois, Michigan and Indiana. Speaking to reporters after he flew to Ohio's capital Tuesday afternoon, McCain acknowledged that he still needs to energize a Republican electorate that in recent years has been dismayed by GOP missteps.

"Our base was dispirited by the spending and corruption," McCain said.

He also sought to explain what has become one of the Democrats' favorite attack lines -- his statement that U.S. troops might need to stay in Iraq for 100 years. He said that he was referring to what he called "an American presence" after Iraqis take over military responsibilities, much like the presence of U.S. troops in Germany and Japan more than 60 years after World War II.

McCain made the same point when, during a January event in New Hampshire, he said that having U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 years "would be fine with me."

Shear reported from Washington.