Anti-war candidates (during times of war)

On Hardball this evening, Pat Buchanan made an interesting observation about anti-war candidates during times of war.

If you look throughout American history, no anti-war candidate has ever won a presidential election while the country was at war. 

In 1864, Lincoln trounced General George McClellan, his former top Civil War general; it was never even a contest.  Franklin Roosevelt easily defeated Wendell Wilkie  in 1940, and even though the United States wasn't formally in World War II at the time, there was little doubt that FDR was in favor of joining the fight and Wilkie opposed it. 

Oddly enough, in 1968 the roles were reversed -- and still the anti-war candidate lost.   Sitting Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who supported a bombing pause and phased withdrawal, was defeated by challenger Richard Nixon, who opposed retreat and withdrawal.   Four years later, Nixon trounced anti-war candidate George McGovern in one of the biggest landslides in U.S. history.

And most recently, George W. Bush defeated anti-war candidate John Kerry, even though most voters at the time believed that Bush had rushed to war under false pretenses.  

There's no debating the fact that a vast majority of Americans now believe that invading Iraq was a mistake.  But that's not the issue confronting voters this November.  The real question is:  which alternative -- McCain's stay-the-course approach or Obama's immediate withdrawal -- makes the most sense right now for the country.  If McCain can make the case that his approach is still the most practical and in the best interest of the United States, he can still win.