McCain Woos Dissatisfied Conservative Base

(CBS/AP)  Conservatives are nearly resigned to seeing front-runner John McCain capture the Republican presidential nomination, but they are still debating whether to stay home in November or to try to influence his positions and choice of a running mate.

The Arizona senator, who has a long history of disputes over economic and social issues with his party's right flank, is beginning to reach out to those critics now that Super Tuesday voting has given him a commanding lead in the race for delegates and his chief rival, Mitt Romney, suspended his campaign.

"He's got nine months to give birth to a conservative support group," said Cleta Mitchell, chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation.

Mitchell spoke as party activists gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference where McCain was pitching his candidacy to a skeptical audience in a Thursday afternoon speech.

"I call them the ABM voters," said CBS News political consultant Nicolle Wallace, a former aide to President Bush. "Anybody but McCain voters. They are vocal. They are truly agitated by the notion of John McCain, but I think they are probably a smaller sliver of the party than we give them credit for being."

McCain told the group he could not succeed without their support and any differences within the GOP are eclipsed by his differences with Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"It is my sincere hope that, even if you believe I have occasionally erred in my reasoning as a fellow conservative, you will still allow that I have, in many ways important to all of us, maintained the record of a conservative," McCain said in his prepared remarks.

The day before, a leading Christian conservative revealed that McCain had personally reached out to him.

The Rev. Jonathan Falwell - son of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell who made the religious right a political force when he helped found the Moral Majority in 1979 - said Wednesday that he had a telephone talk with McCain within the past 24 hours. Falwell, who succeeded his father as pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchville, Va., said he wasn't ready to endorse a candidate but wanted to hear more from the Arizona senator on the issues.

"I look forward to seeing what McCain's plan is to unite the party," Falwell said, "and to see what he has to say in the coming days on the social agenda." He also expressed interest in hearing more from McCain on national security, the economy, Supreme Court nominees, and "how to protect human life and traditional marriage."

McCain's outreach to conservatives comes after he has garnered nearly 60 percent of the delegates needed for nomination. Although he hasn't locked up the nomination, he's won more delegates than rivals Romney, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul combined.

As a result, conservatives angered over McCain's stands on immigration, campaign finance and President Bush's tax cuts are talking less about stopping McCain and have begun to discuss whether they can influence his positions or his selection of a running mate.

"I think he has to become just as comfortable campaigning shoulder to shoulder with Tom Coburn and some of these other conservatives as he is campaigning shoulder to shoulder with Rudy Giuliani and Joe Lieberman," Wallace said. "We have to see him just as proud of his record as a fiscal conservative, and as a social conservative, as we see him with his reputation as a maverick."

For McCain, the challenge is to sound a unifying theme without appearing too malleable or swayed by political convenience. McCain recognizes that tacking to the right could hurt his support among independents and moderates that have helped him get this far.

"I'm aware there's a very fine line between inspiring in unity and pandering," McCain said Wednesday. "You know, you've got to present it in the right way, of course."

Mitchell is one who does not expect McCain to undergo a transformation.

"He's 70,000 years old, he's not going to change," she said.

Right now she is not supporting any of the Republican candidates in the field. If not satisfied by Nov. 7, she said, she may well sit the election out.

"It's a very American privilege not to vote," she said.

For some conservatives, McCain's emergence is a sign that the Republican Party is abandoning conservatives.

"The Republican Party has left the moral conservative base adrift," said Jerome Corsi, a conservative activist and co-author of "Unfit for Command," a book that attacked 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's Vietnam service.

"If the Republican Party doesn't come to its senses soon, I think there will be a lot of sitting out or discussion about a third party being formed or supported," Corsi said.

[gkc99]

McCain just doesn''t please the elite of the Tighty Whitey Righty crowd--Rush ******** and Anne Cunter just don''t think he''s Nazi enough to get their blessing.

McCain has been all over the spectrum for years, so expect a "rush" of real tough sounding statements from McCain as he tries to rally Bushit''s Fundamentalists, then a sharp leftward shift after the primaries.

The good news is that ******** and Cunter just aren''t the king-makers they thought they were--their day is past, their reign is ended.

But no matter what shape-shifting transformations McCain goes through, the Repugs are going to be left out in the cold, twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, this year.

Eight years of the Darth Bushit regime has damaged them for decades to come.
Yeehah!

[samthetvcat]

PS The Jerry Falwell comment was just an example - like I know they ''made up'' and everything, but once you say something, you can''t really take it back and you never really gain that trust back unless you truly have a change of heart . . . haven''t there been other instances of McCain rubbing people the wrong way like this?

[samthetvcat]

Is this rift in the Republican party deeper than just an ideological battle between ''moderates'' and ''conservatives''? There''s an element of disrespect that only seems to come when people feel somebody''s been dismissive . . . like might part of the problem be the way McCain described Jerry Falwell as that ''agent of hate'' or whatever (?)

I''m kind of interested to see how far right McCain veers to please the conservatives because I''d rather vote for him than Hillary, but just won''t be able to do it if he starts touting some of the Huckabee platforms which I personally find morally repugnant . . .

[heartlandjim]

Mike Huckabee is still in this thing, folks. Remember the miricle in West Virginia? Now Dr. James Dobson is endorsing Mike in Kansas. Miricles can happen. Respectfully I ask each of you to take a second look at Mike. He is a good and decent man and he truly does have conservative values. Please, folks, look again at this true conservative.

[novamba]

pelosistill, one question, maybe two: do you really think that this country will mobilize to remove the 20 Million illegals that currently reside here? Do you know who milks the cows, picks the beans and veggies and fruits and cleans the chicken coops in this country for less than minimun wage? JOSE JIMENEZ, but if you give him status (or amnesty, or whatever, kind of like I figure your ancestors got at some point) then you can tax Jose and the other 20 Million, and let them pay their way into social services while keeping food prices down (because I doubt you or I are looking to work the fields anytime soon). Now if you dont like them because they are brown and you dont understand their language, then there is no hope.

[novamba]

Pelosisstill: "Jose Jimenez "no speaka da english" types and their anchor babies"? what is that about? is that how you want to win people to the conservative side? That is the reason Romney gave up and Huckabee will not win. Too much Rush, hannity, beck, and all the other retards in your speech. Good luck with Hillary.

[ivandrago]

You guys are just chugging Hater-ade (kinda like Gaterade). With McCain as the probable Republican candidate, you guys don''t know where to spit your hateful comments.

Both sides have to say bull they really don''t mean, and or can''t back up. The Democrats won''t leave Iraq any time soon, but they have to say it. It''s just games. You have to jump through hoops in both parties or you can''t win. McCain simply has not jumped the way the conservatives like.

[pelosisstill]

Another reason to possibly vote for McLame is what we would unfortunately face if we don''t - if you thought Carter was pathetic, gutless, a piece of sh*t - and he still is - we''d get much worse with Lewinsky''s sweetheart and Stepin'' Fetchit Obama, who stands for absolutely nothing except surrender. Still, by voting for McLame, you are voting for a pro-ILLEGAL, pro-Gore Environmentalist Democrat who at least has some backbone left on the war - but not much.

It''ll be interesting. And unless he has a Veep who can be forceful - a Thompson or Romney perhaps who will have as much say as Cheney, you might as well vote for the other two - and expect a Nuclear 9/11 or worse.

[pelosisstill]

Notveteran71, but Islamonazi appeasing pissant.

I will NOT vote for McLame at this point because he is exactly like you - a loudmouth who boasts of his heroism in a war we didn''t win. The only thing he has going for him unlike bozos and neo-fascists like you is that he still urges a victory in Iraq and thinks we can do it - that, plus the stupidity of the Nazi element of the Left, just might propel me to the ballot box.

But until he truly apologizes to those of us unlike your Leftists who have to deal with his Jose Jimenez "no speaka da english" types and their anchor babies, and stops equating what he went through with our dealing with roaches who would kill us, he can rot in his Biltmore towers for all I care.

[voter1111]

I think if McCain were smart, he''d stop crying about the conservatives who don''t like him and didnt vote for him and realize those who did vote for him are, ahemmmm a majority. Say thanks and stop ****''n em off by crying in his victory beer.