Victorious McCain Still Faces Challenges

SPRINGFIELD, Pa. — For John McCain, who spent Friday morning talking with Republicans at a Pennsylvania country club, the 10 days since he clinched the GOP presidential nomination have had their challenges.

Some top-level Republicans have not endorsed him, questions linger about his lobbying links, and exit polls from the first primary since he clinched showed some conservatives still aren't excited about his candidacy in a year when Democrats are fired up.

The conservative drumbeat against McCain continued this week with harsh words from longtime activist Brent Bozell and release of the exit poll numbers.

"McCain may have the Beltway crowd in his corner, but grassroots conservatives aren't sold," Bozell wrote in The Washington Post, adding, "The liberal base of the Democratic Party is on fire. (McCain) must bring an equal passion to the table with his conservative base."

Exit poll numbers from Mississippi, where McCain won the Tuesday primary with 79 percent of the vote, highlighted the passion problem.

Just under 70 percent of Mississippi GOP voters identified themselves as "born-again or evangelical Christians." McCain carried that segment, but 21 percent voted against him, siding with Huckabee or Ron Paul even though the race is over.

Asked how to handle illegal immigrants, 50 percent said "deport them," a concept McCain has rejected as unrealistic. Over all, 40 percent of GOP voters in Mississippi said McCain's positions are "not conservative enough."

Liberals like those numbers.

"The conservative coalition is already shattered. It is demoralized. It has a candidate it does not view as its own," said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. "You are dealing with a coalition that has to grapple with enthusiasm."

McCain's latest round of lobbyist problems was sparked by his efforts — and those of top campaign aides who are also lobbyists — in connection with a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract awarded to Airbus, a foreign company.

The situation allowed Democrats to, again, work on painting McCain as a run-of-the-mill longtime Washington lawmaker and not the maverick he claims to be.

"The fact is, after 26 years in Washington, John McCain is just another Bush Republican who puts his lobbyist friends and campaign contributors ahead of American workers and their families," said Damien LaVera, spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

Former Rep. Tom Loeffler, R-Texas, McCain's national finance chairman, lobbies for European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., Airbus' parent firm. Susan Nelson, McCain's campaign finance director, and former Navy Secretary William Ball III, who has campaigned for McCain, lobbied for EADS prior to signing on with the campaign.

Airbus, in conjunction with Northrop Grumman Corp., won the contract over Boeing Co., which has filed a protest alleging "irregularities" in the process.

In 2004, McCain helped block an earlier Boeing contract to provide the refueling system. In 2006, McCain urged defense officials to ensure that the bidding process was fair.

"I had nothing to do with the (EADS) contract, except to insist in writing, on several occasions as this process went forward, that it be fair and open and transparent. That was my involvement in it," McCain said Tuesday in St. Louis.

For months on the campaign trail, the tanker issue has been a positive in McCain's standard stump speech.

"We managed to kill a bogus Air Force tanker deal that ended up with people in jail that would have cost you an additional $6 billion," he said at a Michigan campaign rally in January.

During Friday's town hall meeting here, McCain made no mention of the tanker, opting instead to use other examples of what he sees as wasteful military spending.

In a memo this week, McCain adviser Steve Schmidt said the fact "that John McCain is being attacked for uncovering and stopping corruption that sent criminals to jail speaks directly to everything that is wrong in Washington today."

McCain's endorsement list steadily has grown in recent weeks, but there are holdouts.

Twenty GOP senators formally have endorsed McCain, which means 29 have not. And four of the nation's 22 GOP governors — including one whom McCain worked against in a re-election effort — have not yet endorsed the man who will top the GOP ticket in November.

The holdout governors are Alaska's Sarah Palin, Idaho's Butch Otter, Nebraska's Dave Heineman and South Dakota's Mike Rounds.

Rounds, chairman of Mike Huckabee's national steering committee, soon will endorse McCain, according to Mitch Krebs, the governor's spokesman. But it hasn't happened yet.

Things are more complicated with Palin and Heineman, and uncertain with Otter.

Heineman backed former GOP candidate Mitt Romney, calling him "the only candidate who can bring true conservative change to Washington."

And McCain was the only candidate who worked against Heineman's re-election in 2006, taking the unusual step of getting involved in the GOP primary by endorsing Tom Osborne, a former congressman and former Nebraska football coach.

Heineman, who inherited his job when Mike Johanns became agriculture secretary in 2005, beat Osborne and won the general election. Now, according to spokeswoman Jen Rae Heim, Heineman has no plans to endorse any presidential candidate "in the near future."

Heim insists it has nothing to do with the fact that McCain wanted Heineman ousted in 2006.

Alaska's Palin, who shows up on some potential running mate lists, was not moved to endorsement after two recent Washington meetings with McCain.

"Governor Palin would like further communications with Senator McCain on issues important to Alaska and the nation before making an endorsement," said Sharon Leighow, Palin's spokeswoman. "More specifically, on Alaska's plans for a natural gas pipeline" to move natural gas to the lower 48 states.

It's a project that could require the kind of federal subsidy McCain generally opposes.

McCain and Palin also differ on another energy issue of importance to Alaskans. He opposes drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She supports it.

In Idaho, Otter has said nothing about a GOP presidential nominee.

"He is just keeping that to himself," said spokesman Jon Hanian.