Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Arizona Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign is posting photos and video from his four-day bus tour around Iowa that began Thursday, and his campaign's blogger Patrick Hynes says the bus tour is drawing large crowds.

Meanwhile, the former front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination has skipped so many events put on by political conservatives that some are wondering if it is intentional. And now the AP reports that McCain, "will miss another event for conservative activists this month while he’s on a trip to Iraq," but reports that McCain "says he’s not sidestepping invitations to appear before right-leaning groups."

McCain will not attend the Club for Growth’s annual winter conference in Palm Beach, Fla., that begins March 31, while rival presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, Sam Brownback and Jim Gilmore will attend, as will former House Speaker and possible presidential race late-entry Newt Gingrich.

"I’ve had this trip to Iraq scheduled for a very long period of time,” McCain told reporters Tuesday outside a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser. “And I think it’s more important, as the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, to visit regularly Iraq, particularly during this very critical time as we go through this new strategy.”

The AP reminds readers that McCain was the only leading Republican candidate to skip the Conservative Political Action Conference a few weeks ago and "also bypassed a retreat for members of the Heritage Foundation and a conservative summit hosted by the National Review Institute."

Iraq is important, and I'm inclined to accept McCain's explanation as straight talk, but it's worth noting that the Club for Growth recently issued a review of McCain's record on economic issues and said said McCain is "tainted by a marked antipathy towards the free market and individual freedom."