Clinton, Obama Recast Their Message on Iraq

Public fixation on the war may be waning, but two of the candidates' chief surrogates think it could revive.

Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, campaigning for Clinton in Texas, thinks the war and its many permutations are already returning to prominence, thanks to the emergence of Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) as the prospective Republican nominee. McCain was a prisoner of war in Vietnam and is a strong supporter of the president's recent Iraq tactics, and Clark said he can be expected to play on voters' fears in the general election.

"All we have to have," Clark said in a telephone interview from Galveston, "is a freshly elevated threat level or an incident somewhere -- or a message from Osama bin Laden, as we did in 2004 -- to reawaken fear in the minds of many voters."

Kerry, too, sees a strong possibility for Iraq to return to center stage.

Iraq is "held together by chewing gum and Band-Aids," he said in an interview between campaign events along the Texas border. "They say we're drawing down. We'll see."

Polling director Jon Cohen and staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.