The Sun Journal spent a few minutes with Sen. John McCain while he made a campaign stop in Maine on Monday. In this exclusive interview, the presidential candidate said America must turn its attention from Iraq to the fight in Afghanistan. And, he’ll be returning to Maine before the November election.

Q: A recent poll shows Obama leading McCain among Maine voters 46.1 to 32.1 percent. “How do you plan to win Maine, and how important is Maine to you?”

A: It’s important. I think maybe I’ve got two role models in Sen. Snowe and Sen. Collins. But I know it’s hard work. I know we’re behind and I’m the underdog. I know it’s going to be a tough challenge, but we’re going to have to run a good campaign and run events like these.

Q: Do you plan to come back to Maine?

A: Oh yeah.

Q: How was the museum? Did it bring you back to when you were a POW?

A: “No, it’s nice to see pictures of old friends and you know that kind of thing, but it wasn’t …. That’s a part of my life that ended a long time ago. It always reminds me that the people I know best and love most are those I had the honor of serving with. It’s always good to be reminded.” Unlike some veterans, McCain talks about his war experience with ease. “I was able to put it behind me right after I came home. It took me 45 minutes to readjust.”

Q: I’m a military mom, one son is going in the Army and I’m scared. You mentioned we’re going to be in Iraq for a long time. So as his mom, what can I expect with Iraq, Afghanistan?

A: Thank you for your sons’ service … One thing I can tell you in Iraq, we have succeeded and we are winning. We’ll be able to withdraw our troops. Now I’ve got to give you some straight talk. We need some more troops in Afghanistan. But we also need American as well as our allies, a NATO operation in Afghanistan. We need to have our own troops there because we’ll be rotating, withdrawing troops from Iraq. But this situation with Afghanistan is very tough. The good news about Afghanistan is it’s a new strategy we’ve got to put into place, but at least we have a lot of allies who are with us there, and that’s helpful. But I can only tell you that we all know where Al Qaeda and Taliban cooperated, we know that 9-11 was a great tragedy for America, and Al Qaeda is an enemy … The Taliban, if they’re able to come back to power, would have very bad consequences for America’s national security. They’re staging a bit of a comeback, particularly on the Pakistan border where they pretty much have sanctuary.

Q: What’s different of how you’d tackle Afghanistan and Iraq than President Bush?

A: We’ve got to employ the same strategy in Afghanistan that succeeded in Iraq. A lot of it depends on … but the NATO command structure, with the situation on the Pakistan border, numbers of troops. There’s a number of factors. But the overall strategy has to be the same strategy that succeeded in Iraq. More troops, but it’s a streamlined command structure, it’s agreement and cooperation with Pakistan on the border areas. There’s a whole lot of factors rather than just say send more troops.

Q: In your speech you mentioned we were going to be there a long time.

A: What I mean is we’re going to have to put this down. We’re going to have to come back to the Taliban. I also meant we’re in a long struggle with radical Islamic extremists. They’re trying in a lot of places in the world to do us harm.

Q: What’s the best part and worst part of running for president?

A: The best part you get to be around people like here today, enthusiasm, being so generous with their time and support. I guess the only hard part is probably we have very long hours, but it’s also very invigorating. I’ll be pumped up for quite a while after this event because of the enthusiasm of the people there. And being around our veterans. There were veterans there today from World War II and from Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s nice to see them.