April 11 (Bloomberg) -- As I was watching General David Petraeus being questioned in congressional hearings, I finally got why Senator John McCain has an even chance of being president in spite of supporting a war that most Americans are against.

As he'd done so many times before, McCain said we can win if we just pull up our socks and banish our defeatism. ``We can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success,'' he said, ensuring ``that the terrible price we have paid in the war, a price that has made all of us sick at heart, has not been paid in vain.''

Don't I wish? Don't we all? I don't buy his take on the war but, like half of America, I want to. Deep down, we can't accept limitations on our good intentions. We hate to hear that a military surge didn't produce a political surge that created a Jeffersonian democracy or some reasonable facsimile thereof.

Another six months you say? OK. I'll buy the prospect that the next six months will be THE six months that makes all the months before worth it.

Finally, the Iraqis won't be hell-bent on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but will compromise, conciliate and share power and oil revenue with each other happily ever after. They will also build an army that won't flee when the shooting starts as it did recently in Basra.

Compare this with the downer Democrats whining that we've blown it, that it all might be in vain; indeed, we're worse off than before we lost more than 4,000 lives, spent trillions of dollars, and left 35,000 soldiers maimed and brain-damaged for life. Just suck it up.

Democratic Gloom

Listen to Senator Hillary Clinton's statement that it is ``irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and time again, at such tremendous cost to our national security.''

Senator Barack Obama is almost as dour, concluding that we may have to settle for ``a messy, sloppy status quo.''

McCain's optimism is seductive no matter the facts because Americans aren't good losers. It's not that we're sore losers. We're just not losers generally and have no practice at it.

The reigning national philosophy is we can do anything if we just stick with it. Anyone who can shield us from the reality of losing is tapping into an abiding need that exists in poker, illness and war: As long as you don't fold your cards, turn off the respirator, withdraw your troops, you're still in the game. You haven't lost.

Take Your Pick

There were among the pro- and anti-war protesters in the halls those who chanted ``John McCain, you're insane,'' but he may be crazy like a fox. Who do you prefer to hear: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said last April that the war was lost or McCain saying victory is just a surge away.

Forget that the sending of more U.S. troops to Iraq hasn't accomplished its goal of creating a functioning government and an independent army. McCain has bragging rights to having said the surge would work and has statistics to show it has. That buys him time for the other stuff.

McCain is winning the propaganda battle over the war. When a generic Republican is put up against Clinton or Obama, the generic Republican loses. When the Republican is McCain, many polls show that he's winning.

That McCain's approach isn't hurting him was clear at the much-anticipated hearings. Obama and Clinton were still in favor of withdrawing troops, but not nearly so outspoken as they'd been earlier.

Sowing Confusion

It helps that McCain has separated himself from President George W. Bush's war and hasn't been caught in any recent photos being hugged by him. McCain claims ownership of a new, improved war. He's long been a critic of Bush's management of the military, called early for Donald Rumsfeld's head, and was an early adherent of putting an expert on insurgency like Petraeus in charge.

He's done more than just about anyone to convince Americans that they're fighting a war against al-Qaeda, conflating our real enemy -- al-Qaeda -- with ``al-Qaeda in Iraq,'' a terrorist group that didn't exist until we invaded. It's been repeated so often that more than 80 percent of Americans believe the two groups are the same.

In his speech after the hearings ended, Bush so defined down success that he could say we'd met our goals. But it doesn't matter much what Bush has to say anymore. It's McCain's war now, and he's not afraid to own it.

`League of Democracies'

McCain talks about a ``League of Democracies,'' uniting the Middle East for peace and freedom, replacing autocrats with democratically elected governments, without mentioning that those governments are now led by terrorists from Hamas and Hezbollah, blossoming where once autocrats ruled. He may be as delusional as Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, but with his military bearing, his seriousness, his white hair, his war wounds, his straight talk, he doesn't seem so.

Just as independents and Democrats project onto McCain a liberalism that isn't there, they may believe he will be like Richard Nixon going to China -- the hawk who can safely bring the troops home without having to say we're sorry we ever went there.

(Margaret Carlson, author of ``Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House'' and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Margaret Carlson in Washington at mcarlson3@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 11, 2008 00:01 EDT