In the 1968 Presidential campaign, Richard Nixon stated that "new leadership will end the war" in Vietnam. He never used the phrase "secret plan", which originated with a reporter looking for a lead to a story summarizing the Republican candidate's (hazy) promise to end the war without losing.

As for Ike, read his "I will go to Korea" speech.

When the enemy struck, on that June day of 1950, what did America do? It did what it always has done in all its times of peril. It appealed to the heroism of its youth.
This appeal was utterly right and utterly inescapable. It was inescapable not only because this was the only way to defend the idea of collective freedom against savage aggression. That appeal was inescapable because there was now in the plight into which we had stumbled no other way to save honor and self-respect.
The answer to that appeal has been what any American knew it would be. It has been sheer valor-valor on all the Korean mountainsides that, each day, bear fresh scars of new graves.
Now-in this anxious autumn-from these heroic men there comes back an answering appeal. It is no whine, no whimpering plea. It is a question that addresses itself to simple reason. It asks: Where do we go from here? When comes the end? Is there an end?
These questions touch all of us. They demand truthful answers. Neither glib promises nor glib excuses will serve. They would be no better than the glib prophecies that brought us to this pass.
To these questions there are two false answers-both equally false. The first would be any answer that dishonestly pledged an end to war in Korea by any imminent, exact date. Such a pledge would brand its speaker as a deceiver.
The second and equally false answer declares that nothing can be done to speed a secure peace. It dares to tell us that we, the strongest nation in the history of freedom, can only wait-and wait-and wait. Such a statement brands its speaker as a defeatist.
My answer-candid and complete-is this:
The first task of a new Administration will be to review and re-examine every course of action open to us with one goal in view: To bring the Korean war to an early and honorable end. This is my pledge to the American people.

...

As the next Administration goes to work for peace, we must be guided at every instant by that lesson I spoke of earlier. The vital lesson is this: To vacillate, to appease, to placate is only to invite war-vaster war-bloodier war. In the words of the late Senior [Arthur H.] Vandenberg, appeasement is not the road to peace; it is only surrender on the installment plan.
I will always reject appeasement.

...

For a democracy, a great election, such as this, signifies a most solemn trial. It is the time when-to the bewilderment of all tyrants-the people sit in judgment upon the leaders. It is the time when these leaders are summoned before the bar of public decision. There they must give evidence both to justify their actions and explain their intentions.
In the great trial of this election, the judges-the people-must not be deceived into believing that the choice is between isolationism and internationalism. That is a debate of the dead past. The vast majority of Americans of both parties know that to keep their own nation free, they bear a majestic responsibility for freedom through all the world. As practical people, Americans also know the critical necessity of unimpaired access to raw materials on other continents for our own economic and military strength.
Today the choice-the real choice-lies between policies that assume that responsibility awkwardly and fearfully-and policies that accept that responsibility with sure purpose and firm will. The choice is between foresight and blindness, between doing and apologizing, between planning and improvising.
In rendering their verdict, the people must judge with courage and with wisdom. For-at this date-any faltering in America's leadership is a capital offense against freedom.
In this trial, my testimony, of a personal kind, is quite simple. A soldier all my life, I have enlisted in the greatest cause of my life-the cause of peace.
I do not believe it a presumption for me to call the effort of all who have enlisted with me-a crusade.
I use that word only to signify two facts. First: We are united and devoted to a just cause of the purest meaning to all humankind. Second: We know that-for all the might of our effort-victory can come only with the gift of God's help.
In this spirit-humble servants of a proud ideal-we do soberly say: This is a crusade.

To say that Ike was not seeking to win the war in Korea on terms favorable to the US is to re-write history.

In reading the speech, I see a bunch of lines that would make for good material in 2008. Contrast the democrat's votes to go to war, then to run away with the improving conditions is likely to be a bit of a problem for the left winning in 2008.

Not really. Nixon and Ike certainly promised to fix the problem, but neither claimed that they would win the war. Nixon promised "peace with honor", which was widely understood to mean running away in slow motion while claiming not to.

The leading Republican contenders have already wrapped themselves in the neocon flag- McCain's 'Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran' will be played on an endless loop; Romney putting legal advisors ahead of the constitution and his desire to 'double GITMO' likewise, and Giuliani with his torture boast and his rat's nest of looney advisors is the gift that keeps on giving. Every dem spot will end on the words 'Out Bushes Bush'.

Both declined to run (Bush didn't decline, but won't run for other reasons).

All three were involved in war that had controversy as to how they started, questions being raised as to how necessary the war was and questions on the competency of how the war has been waged.

For Truman and Johnson, the election went to the other party. But the election also went to the guy promising to fix the problems and win the war, not to the guy saying "run away".

If the fictional Jack Bauer were running, after all, he’d probably win.

I've heard the Rudy is thinking of buffing up.