By Madison Powers, CQ Guest Columnist

Recent polls show a close match-up between Senator John McCain and any likely Democratic nominee. Many have puzzled how this could be possible, given the incredibly low standing of President Bush generally and the public’s dissatisfaction attitudes with the war and the economy under the Republican administration.

One Democratic response is to remind us that polls in April and May are notoriously unreliable predictors of November voting results. Many things can and will happen between now and the election.

Still, some explanation for the current attitudes seems in order. How could people say they are so eager for change and yet seem willing to sign on for another 100 years in Iraq and other Bush policies?

One explanation is that McCain is the beneficiary of the Democrats’ internal brawl and that McCain’s current advantage will dissipate. Another explanation is that the public still buys the McCain-as-maverick story that so many gullible reporters have fallen for since the 2000 campaign. Whatever kernel of truth either explanation contains, some understanding of McCain’s standing may determine the fate of the Democratic presidential hopes for the fall.

Let’s just suppose that the economy will loom largest among voter concerns. Unless Democrats fail miserably at linking the war and the economy, the war will continue to be an important voter concern.

Even as some polls show more people believing the surge having some positive effects, the number of Americans saying the U.S. made a mistake in sending troops to Iraq reached a new high, with 63 percent taking that view. That surpasses the 61 percent who said in May, 1971 that the Vietnam War was a mistake. The public seems to have lost its appetite for war once again, and McCain seems to be on the wrong side of history.

However, when one recalls that the May 1971 poll was conducted in advance of the 1972 presidential elections, it did not translate into an advantage for the Democrats. The parallel may be instructive.

When President Nixon promised “peace with honor” he implicitly charged the anti-war Democrats with the prospect of American dishonor and reduced stature in the world. With public opposition to his foreign policy at an all time high, Nixon won in very large part because of a wink and a nod that said he would do what the Democrats promised to do but without the indignity of defeat.

Many Democrats found it almost impossible to believe that Nixon could win four more years. They relished the Watergate scandals that, for them, proved the truth about Nixon that they failed to establish at the ballot box.

However, there is a reason that Nixon’s re-election strategy worked, and it is one that was long ago noted by President Ulysses Grant. In his memoirs, he said “Experience proves that the man who obstructs a war in which his nation is engaged, no matter whether right or wrong, occupied no enviable place in life or history. Better for him, individually, to advocate ‘war, pestilence, and famine,’ than to act as obstructionist to a war already begun.”

“Peace with honor” may not be the right phrase for McCain’s campaign (in fact it also was Neville Chamberlain’s phrase in his “Peace for our Time” speech after negotiating the Munich Agreement with Hitler in 1938). But to the extent that McCain can promise to see us through this miserable war and find us a more dignified path out than simple withdrawal, then he has the huge advantage that Grant and Nixon so well understood.

Such a strategy can be successful in electoral terms (never mind actual foreign policy terms) if he can package the Iraq exit strategy well enough. He has to do two things.

First, McCain has to figure out his own wink and nod strategy. He has to convey that he will get us out of this mess and simultaneously talk the tough talk so that everybody knows that he doesn’t really mean it. It’s hard to find a place for this sort of thing on the Straight talk Express.