McCain to Focus on Wooing the Conservatives at Arm's Length

WASHINGTON — Following the drama of Super Tuesday, the next phase of John McCain's presidential bid will be a different kind of campaigning — a renewed effort to consolidate support from a key GOP constituency: conservatives who've never loved him.

It begins with a speech Thursday to the Conservative Political Action Committee, an influential group he snubbed last year when other GOP presidential candidates dropped by to make their pitch.

"It was certainly noted that he didn't show up last year," said Peggy Venable of Austin, the Texas director of Americans for Progress and a scheduled participant in a CPAC panel discussion. "Is he a Johnny-come-lately conservative or a conservative at all?"

Straw poll numbers from last year's CPAC meeting back up the anti-McCain rhetoric. At last year's event, McCain came in fifth (with 12 percent) in a straw poll of 1,705 attendees. Two of the four above him (Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, third at 15, and Rudy Giuliani, second at 17) are out of the race. A third (Newt Gingrich, fourth at 14) never got in the race.

That leaves former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who had been first at 21 percent and drew applause by blasting McCain initiatives on campaign finance reform and immigration.

"McCain-Kennedy gives benefits to illegals that would cost taxpayers millions," Romney had said. "And more importantly, amnesty didn't work 20 years ago and it won't work today."

Conservative animus toward McCain extends beyond policy.

"In McCain's world, everything is personal," David Keene, CPAC organizer and American Conservative Union president, wrote recently. "To disagree with him marks one not just as wrong but as almost definitionally evil."

Why the animosity from conservatives?

"I've been such a great American I'm mystified too," he joked on the Straight Talk Express during a South Carolina campaign swing. "It's something I'll never understand."

"I don't know, except that, and maybe I'm not being realistic, but I would hope that part of it has to do with is that they have not examined carefully yet the candidates' records," he said.

That was several months ago. On Monday, after many debates and much examining of records, the Romney camp worked to push the portrait of McCain as something less than a movement conservative. The rhetoric is tough, tough enough to make it potentially tricky when, and if, McCain clinches the nomination and Romney – for the GOP's sake – will be expected to endorse McCain.

"On every single major conservative battle in the last 10 years John McCain has been on the wrong side," Romney adviser Bay Buchanan told MSNBC. "And I believe that's why conservatives are now saying 'no' to John McCain."

Campaigning on Monday in Boston, McCain – identified in his current TV ads as a "true conservative" – offered a bifurcated message about remaining true to conservative roots while working cooperatively with Democrats.

"As president of the United States, I will preserve my proud conservative Republican credentials, but I will reach across the aisle and work together for the good of this country," he said.

In Nashville, Romney kicked off a coast-to-coast day of barnstorming with a simple message to Super Tuesday GOP voters: "Across the country, conservatives have come together and they say, you know what? We don't want Senator McCain. We want a conservative."

The effort among conservatives is crucial to McCain regardless of the Super Tuesday outcomes. If he effectively sews up the nomination, he'll need conservatives as part of his winning formula for November. And if the battle for the nomination continues beyond Super Tuesday, he'll need to bring more conservatives into his camp if he wants to wrap up the nomination in coming primary contests.

It's against that kind of rhetoric that McCain – possibly as de facto GOP nominee if Super Tuesday goes his way – will show up Thursday at the CPAC conference in Washington. How tough a crowd is it likely to be? Thursday's agenda includes book signings for the following titles: "Whitewash: What the Media Won't Tell You About Hillary Clinton, but Conservatives Will," "Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About the New Democratic Majority," and "Diplomatic Divorce: Why America Should End Its Love Affair with the United Nations."

Venable will be on a panel on Friday entitled, "The Power of Principle: Conservative Victories Across the Nation."

"His ad saying he is a true conservative is kind of an insult to a lot of us who believe some of the issues he supported certainly are not on the conservative agenda," she said.

Venable backs Romney and hopes the game isn't over by the time Texans vote on March 4. If it is over, Venable said it will partly be the fault of a process – including early primaries in states in which Democrats and independents could vote in GOP primaries – that favored McCain.

"I think the key is when you are picking a party candidate that candidate should be selected by folks that are in that party. And so certainly I feel like early voting skewed things," she said. "I think conservatives have been shortchanged by the process."

Embedded in last year's CPAC straw poll numbers are data indicating another possible problem for McCain among conservatives. Sixty-two percent of the ballots were cast by people ages 18-25, representing the young activist wing of the GOP.

Laura Morales, a University of Texas-San Antonio student and director of public relations for Young Conservatives of Texas, wants Ron Paul to be president but acknowledges the GOP race probably is down to McCain and Romney.

And that leaves her as a Romney backer.

"McCain just leans far to the left and claims to have this conservative record when he clearly doesn't," said Morales, also scheduled for a CPAC conference panel.

That said, she'd vote for McCain in November if he is the GOP nominee. The support would be short on enthusiasm.

"He has been harshly critical of those of us who are conservative activists," Morales said. "We are not so willing to back a candidate who criticizes us for trying to advance the conservative movement."