House GOP Rallies To McCain's Side

In recent weeks and months, House Republicans and their leadership have not exactly swooned over the presidential candidacy of Arizona Sen. John McCain.

But you never would have known it from the atmospherics of a brief meeting McCain had with his House GOP colleagues Wednesday at the Capitol Hill Club. According to aides and members in attendance, McCain walked away with the endorsement of the party’s top three House leaders, won three standing ovations, was lauded for his commitment to his party and got just one question about immigration — an issue on which many House Republicans passionately, vehemently disagree with McCain’s past positions.

What a difference time — and perhaps three victories in Tuesday’s Potomac primary — can make.

Tuesday’s primary wins, even more than McCain’s showing on Super Tuesday on Feb. 5, have established him as the all-but-certain GOP nominee. And Republicans have always done a good job of playing nice when it comes to the team — even with a candidate whom quite a few of them were absolutely trashing, at least privately, in the very recent past.

“All of us know that Sen. McCain has had positions that differ from some of us in the party,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told a roomful of reporters after the meeting, only to declare a second later: “I stand before you proud to endorse my friend.”

Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (R-Fla.) joined Boehner Wednesday by announcing they would officially endorse McCain, even though former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and their own colleague, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, remain in the race.

Putnam, who had backed Fred Thompson until the former Tennessee senator pulled out of the contest, called McCain “the next president of the United States.”

But Putnam echoed the sentiments of his GOP colleagues when he said McCain, whose moderate positions on issues like detainee abuse, campaign finance and immigration reform have put him at odds — to say the least — with party leaders over the years, was the best candidate to help Republicans compete in swing districts.

There is little sense of real love for McCain from many members, but instead a grudging acknowledgment that he is a nominee who can win. “I believe this contest is over,” Putnam said, “and I think it has produced the best possible nominee for us to win back this House.”

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, the Republicans’ campaign chief in the House, said of the likelihood of having McCain as the nominee: “It’s good news for us.

“Recent elections tell us the decisive political battleground is in the middle,” Cole said. “John McCain is the Democrats’ worst nightmare.”

Indeed, to crystallize that point, McCain had just declared he intended “to campaign in every state in the union.”

Only one Republican in the room — California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher — asked McCain a question related to immigration reform, even though GOP leaders in the House have twice scuttled Senate efforts championed by McCain to overhaul the country’s immigration laws.

Rohrabacher asked the senator about border agents jailed for killing an alleged drug dealer, a conservative cause célèbre. McCain told him the Justice Department was looking into it.

But he also assured the assembled Republicans that life on the trail had taught him one thing at least: Securing the border is the first step in any immigration overhaul.

Boehner introduced McCain on Wednesday by telling members it was time to come together as Republicans and lauding the senator for his commitment to the party. To illustrate that latter point, he appealed to a vulnerable area for most House members: the state of their campaign treasury.

Boehner told the assebled lawmakers that the Arizona senator did a combined 114 fundraisers or rallies with House Republicans during the past two election cycles, according to statistics provided by the leader’s office. During that time, he raised more than $20 million for the GOP and gave money to 63 House incumbents or challengers in 2004 and 54 incumbents or challengers in 2006.

McCain garnered the biggest applause when he told members about his son, Jimmy, a Marine who recently returned from Iraq to report that IED attacks are way down.

Afterward, Boehner lauded McCain for making a principled stand against a drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq at a time when many Republican presidential hopefuls were dodging questions about the war and the entire Democratic field embraced a withdrawal.

“John McCain stood strong,” Boehner said. “That type of leadership takes courage.”

And, of course, McCain made the point during his remarks that Republicans could all rally around a reform of the earmark process by which members request special projects, another popular rallying cry for the GOP — but one that many members privately pan.

But Wednesday was all about partisan cheer, and even some of McCain’s staunchest critics are open to supporting his presidency.

Texas Rep. Sam Johnson, who spent years in a North Vietnamese prison camp with McCain but has been at odds with the senator during their shared time in the Capitol, said, “If he’s the Republican nominee, I think all Republicans should vote for him.”

Members and aides have suggested Johnson has shared those views with many of his colleagues in the last week.

Asked if he had any lingering ill will toward McCain, Johnson smiled, patted a reporter on the shoulder and said, “Lingering? No, I don’t have any lingering problems with him. Just like I don’t have any lingering problems with you.”