Possible Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani unveiled their strategies for stabilizing Iraq this week, throwing their support behind President Bush's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

Although Romney and Giuliani have been paving the way for White House bids for months, they previously shied away from articulating plans for quelling the conflict. In Manchester last month, Romney refused to comment about a possible fix for the war. Giuliani steered clear of strategy specifics in Concord last fall. Instead, he offered vague endorsements of Bush's leadership, saying that "there's no point in going back to playing defense."

Despite plummeting support for the war - made clear by the Democratic sweep in November's elections - many Republican voters continue to oppose a troop withdrawal. Romney and Giuliani's support for Bush's plan, political analysts said, are likely an attempt to appeal to conservative primary voters in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election.

"I think Republicans have been shaken in their confidence on Iraq," said Dante Scala, a political scientist at St. Anselm College. "But I still think, as a rule, the more hawkish a stance you take, the better off you are in a Republican primary, within reason."

By supporting Bush, Romney and Giuliani have effectively endorsed the war strategy of Arizona Sen. John McCain, another likely presidential candidate. McCain, a frequent critic of Bush's handling of the war, has been a longtime proponent of increased troop levels.

Among possible Republican presidential candidates, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback was one of the few dissenting voices this week. "I do not believe that sending more troops to Iraq is the answer," Brownback said. "Iraq requires a political rather than a military solution."

"The reason Brownback can get away with that is he's culturally far more conservative," said Del Ali, president of Research 2000, the Maryland-based nonpartisan polling firm that conducts polls for the Monitor.

Giuliani and Romney, meanwhile, are working to make inroads among Republican primary voters. "As Romney and Giuliani vie for the former supporters of Bush - those people who worked for Bush and got Bush elected - they want to come off as very supportive of the president," said Wayne Lesperance, an associate professor of political science at New England College. "This is a way of trying to capture that crowd."

For former Massachusetts governor Romney, backing Bush's plan is simply his latest attempt to appeal to conservative voters, said Larry Sabato, director of University of Virginia's Center for Politics. Since running for statewide office in Massachusetts, Romney has made headlines for changing his rhetoric on abortion and same-sex marriage, in what critics denounce as an attempt to garner the votes of social conservatives.

Romney "is trying to fill the conservative slot, opposing McCain the maverick," Sabato said. "I don't see how you keep conservatives together without backing the Bush position."

As for Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, Iraq presents an opportunity to burnish his tough-on-terrorism credentials, and also serves as a counterpoint to his liberal stance on gay issues and abortion rights, political observers said.

If Giuliani opposed Bush's plan, "it would have played right into McCain and everyone's hands," Ali said. "They could say 'He should be running in the Democratic primary.' "

"There isn't a lot of room for the Republican candidates to take strong exception to George Bush," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. "They've been pretty tightly aligned to him in the past, particularly Giuliani."

But Romney and Giuliani's backing of Bush is a political gamble.

Nate Morrison, a self-described independent who voted for McCain in the 2000 primary, dismissed Romney and Giuliani's position on the war as an attempt to win support from the far right of the party. They "are just playing politics," said Morrison, a police officer from Tilton.

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