McCain reaching out to conservatives
But he's finding plenty of skepticism and hostility
The Arizona senator all but locked up the nomination with the sudden withdrawal of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
His sole remaining competitor is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a populist outsider with strong appeal to Christian conservatives but almost no support among nonreligious voters, no money to wage the kind of campaign it would take to reach them and no friends in the party's talk-radio and TV echo chamber to help him rally disaffected conservatives.
"The contest for the GOP presidential nomination is over," said conservative blogger Michelle Malkin. "The conservative movement is not."
McCain still must win more delegates to assure a first-ballot nomination at this summer's Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. But with his big lead in delegates, he could win fewer than half the remaining delegates and still prevail.
McCain's triumph was sealed at, of all places, the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, a right-wing mecca of party activists and strategists that he shunned last year as hostile territory.
Huckabee insisted Thursday that conservatives should coalesce around his campaign.
"This is a two-man race for the nomination, and I am committed to marching on," he said in a statement. "As a true, authentic, consistent, conservative, I have a vision to bring hope, opportunity and prosperity to all Americans, and I'd like to ask for and welcome the support of those who had previously been committed to Mitt."
But few conservatives even mentioned Huckabee as a viable alternative Thursday, and talk-radio lords such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity dislike Huckabee as much as they do McCain.
A key question now for McCain is whether he can rally conservatives or whether he tries to remake the party by trading conservatives for moderates and independents as he's done in the primaries, pushing the party toward the center.
Appearing before the conference a few hours later, McCain acted like the de facto nominee, lauding Romney and Huckabee and reaching out to conservatives who so far have refused to coalesce behind his candidacy.
He insisted that he meant "no personal insult" when he snubbed their gathering last year, acknowledged their differences on issues such as illegal immigration and tax cuts, and stressed that they agree more than they disagree.
"We have had a few disagreements, and none of us will pretend that we won't continue to have a few," he said.
Said David Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union: "If John McCain were to do nothing except get the nomination, more than half would go along with him because they're Republicans. You're not going to have millions of conservatives walk out on him." The rest, he said, need to be courted and assured they wouldn't be shunned by a McCain White House.
Bloomberg News contributed to this report.
Recent comments
McCain won't be able to unify the "Republican" party...
ksmith199 | Feb. 14, 2008 at 11:10 a.m.
ron paul cant acomplish anything without a libertarian congress....
bob carlisle | Feb. 8, 2008 at 10:56 p.m.
Okay, I finally checked his website, and he says the right things...
Ron Paul? | Feb. 8, 2008 at 5:29 p.m.
